THE    LIFE 


OF 


RICHARD    COBDEN 


k-"-^ 


BY 


JOHN     MORLEY 

BARRISTER-AT-LAW ;    M.A.OXFORD;    HON.  LL.D.  GLASGOW 


BOSTON 

ROBERTS     BROTHERS 

1881 


Author's  Edition. 


University  Press: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


TO 

THE  RIGHT  HONORABLE 

JOHN     BRIGHT, 

^^10  JEemoir 

OF  HIS   CLOSE  COMRADE  IN  THE  CAUSE   OF  WISE,  JUST, 
AND  SEDATE   GOVERNMENT 

IS   INSCRIBED 

WITH  THE   writer's  SINCERE  RESPECT. 


PREFACE. 


Owing  to  various  circumstances,  with  which  I  have  no  right 
to  trouble  the  reader,  the  publication  of  this  work  has  been 
delayed  considerably  beyond  the  date  at  which  I  hoped  to  bring 
it  to  an  end.  As  things  have  turned  out,  the  delay  has  done  no 
harm.  My  memoir  of  Mr.  Cobden  appears  at  a  moment  when 
there  is  a  certain  disposition  in  men's  minds  to  subject  his  work 
and  his  principles  to  a  more  hostile  criticism  than  they  have 
hitherto  encountered.  So  far  perhaps  it  is  permitted  to  me  to 
hope  that  the  book  will  prove  opportune.  It  is  possible,  how- 
ever, that  it  may  disappoint  those  who  expect  to  find  in  it  a  com- 
pletely furnished  armory  for  the  champions  of  Free  Trade.  I 
did  not  conceive  it  to  be  my  task  to  compile  a  polemical  hand- 
book for  that  controversy.  For  this  the  reader  must  always  go  to 
the  parliamentary  debates  between  1840  and  1846,  and  to  the 
manuals  of  Political  Economy. 

It  will  perhaps  be  thought  that  I  should  have  done  better  to 
say  nothing  of  Mr.  Cobden's  private  affairs.  In  the  ordinary  case 
of  a  public  man,  reserve  on  these  matters  is  possibly  a  good  rule. 
In  the  present  instance,  so  much  publicity  was  given  to  Mr. 
Cobden's  affairs  —  some  of  it  of  a  very  malicious  kind  —  that  it 
seemed  best,  not  only  to  the  writer,  but  to  those  whose  feelings  he 
was  bound  first  and  exclusively  to  consider,  to  let  these  take  their 
place  along  with  the  other  facts  of  his  life. 

The  material  for  the  biography  has  been  supplied  in  great 
abundance  by  Mr.  Cobden's  many  friends  and  correspondents. 
His  family  with  generous  confidence  intrusted  it  to  my  uncon- 


viii  PREFACE. 

trolled  discretion,  and  for  any  lack  of  skill  or  judgment  that 
may  appear  in  the  way  in  which  the  materials  have  been  handled, 
the  responsibility  is  not  theirs  but  mine.  Much  of  the  corre- 
spondence had  been  already  sifted  and  arranged  by  Mr.  Henry 
Eichard,  the  respected  Member  for  Merthyr,  who  handed  over  to 
me  the  result  of  his  labor  with  a  courtesy  and  good-will  for 
which  I  am  particularly  indebted  to  him.  Lord  Cardwell  was 
obliging  enough  to  procure  for  me  Mr.  Cobden's  letter  to  Sir 
Eobert  Peel  (Chap.  XVII.),  and,  along  with  Lord  Hardinge,  to 
give  me  permission  to  print  Sir  Eobert  Peel's  reply.  Mr.  Bright, 
with  an  unwearied  kindness  for  which  I  can  never  be  too  grate- 
ful, has  allowed  me  to  consult  him  constantly,  and  has  abounded 
in  helpful  corrections  and  suggestions  while  the  sheets  were 
passing  through  the  press.  N"or  can  I  forget  to  express  the  many 
obligations  that  I  owe  to  my  friend.  Sir  Louis  Mallet.  It  was 
he  who  first  induced  me  to  undertake  a  piece  of  work  which 
he  had  much  at  heart,  and  he  has  followed  it  with  an  attention, 
an  interest,  and  a  readiness  in  counsel  and  information,  of 
which  I  cannot  but  fear  that  the  final  product  gives  a  very 
inadequate  idea. 

J.  M. 
September  29th,  1881. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 
Early  Life. 


PAGE 

Cobden's  birthplace 1 

His  family  and  early  education  ...  2 

Business  in  London 3 

Character  as  a  young  man 4 


PAGE 

Commercial  journeys 5 

Visit  to  Ireland 8 

Family  troubles 9 

Begins  business  on  his  own  account      .  10 


CHAPTER  H. 
Commercial  and  Mental  Progress. 


Cobden's  early  enterprise 12 

Letters  to  his  brother 14 

AtSabden 15 


Self-education 17 

Visits  France  and  Switzerland    ...    19 
Death  of  his  father    .......    20 


CHAPTER  in. 
Travels  in  West  and  East. 


Voyage  to  the  United  States  ....  20 

Vindication  of  his  own  country   ...  22 

Niagara 23 

Estimate  of  American  character  ...  26 

Publication  of  pamphlets 28 

Starts  for  the  East 29 

Gibraltar      . 30 

Malta 32 

Alexandria 33 

From  Alfeh  to  Cairo 36 

The  Pyramids 37 


Cairo 38" 

Visit  to  Mehemet  Ali 40 

Egyptian  manufactories 45 

Massacre  of  Scio 46 

Constantinople 47 

Voyage  to  Smyrna 49 

Conversations  at  Smyrna 51 

Turkish  characteristics 52 

Athens  and  the  Greeks 55 

From  Athens  to  Patras 56 

Malta  and  the  navy 58 


CHAPTER  IV. 
The  Two  Pamphlets. 


Mental  activity  after  the  Reform  Act   .  60 

Combe's  influence  on  Cobden  ....  63 

Application  to  English  policy  ....  64 

The  new  problem 66 

Prosperity  and  political  stability      .    .  67 

Russia  and  Turkey 68 


Intervention  judged  by  experience  .    .  70 

The  Great  Usage 71 

Importance  of  American  competition    .  73 

Extravagances  of  intervention     ...  74 

Shelburne  as  a  precursor 75 

Cobden's  literary  style 76 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  V. 
Life  in  Manchester,  1837-39. 


Political  excitement 76 

Letter  on  factor}'-  legislation     ....  78 

Rejection  at  Stockport 79 

Business  and  position  in  Manchester    .  80 

Advanced  opinions  in  Manchester    .     .  82 

Stru{2^j?le  for  a  Charter 83 

The  Whigs  and  local  self-government  .  84 


The  Radicals  and  the  people  .    .    . 

The  ZoUverein 

The  Prussian  government  .... 

A  Sunday  at  Berlin 

Manchester  and  Germany  contrasted 
Acquaintances  in  London  .... 
Incorporation  of  Manchester   .    .    . 


85 
87 
88 
89 
91 
92 
94 


CHAPTER  VI. 
The  Foundation  op  the  League. 


Bastiat's  comments 94 

Narrow  beginning  of  the  struggle  .  .  95 
London  Anti  Corn  Law  Association  .  96 
The  Chamber  of  Commerce      .     ...     97 

The  idea  of  the  League 98 

The  Com  Question  in  Parliament     .    .  100 


Resentment  of  the  Repealers  .    . 

.    .     102 

The  lecturers  in  the  country  .     . 

.     .     103 

Hostilities  in  the  press  .... 

.     .     K)4 

Condition  of  the  rural  poor    .     . 

.       .      ](!5 

New  settlement  in  business    .    . 

.     .     107 

Marriage 

.     .     108 

CHAPTER  VII. 
The  Corn  Laws. 


Huskisson's  legislation.  .  . 
The  Corn  Bills  of  1827-28  . 
Effect  upon  foreign  countries  . 


Attitude  of  political  parties 
The  Whig  Budget  .  .  . 
Defeat  of  the  Whigs     .    . 


113 
114 
115 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

COBDEN  ENTERS  PARLIAMENT  —  FiRST   SESSION. 


Free  Traders 116  I  First  speech  in  Parliament    .     .     . 

The  new  Parliament 117  I  Protest  against  the  philanthropists 


119 
124 


Friendship  with  Mr.  Bright  . 
Their  different  characteristics 
Cobden's  oratorical  qualities . 


CHAPTER  IX. 

COBDEN  AS  AN  AGITATOR. 


n  His  personality 

'^  Feeling  toward  his  countrymen 


126 
129 
130 
132 
133 


His  faculty  of  veneration 
Conditions  of  usefulness 
Practical  energy  .     .     . 
Logic  and  poetry      .     . 
Genial  ideas    .... 


134 

136 
137 
138 
139 


CHAPTER  X. 
The  New  Corn  Law. 


Political  plans 140 

The  autumn  campaign 141 

The  League  press 142 

Thackeray  and  Carlyle 143 

Discussion  in  the  Cabinet 145 

The  Ministerial  plan 146 


Feeling  in  the  countrj'' 148 

Cobden's  speech  on  the  plan  ....  149 

Country  party  and  manufacturers  .     .  150 

Disappointment  of  the  League    .    _.    .  152 

New  projects 153 

Attitude  of  the  clergy 155 


CONTENTS. 


XI 


CHAPTER  XI. 
SiE  Robert  Peel's  New  Policy. 


The  Imports  Committee 157 

Sir  Robert  Peel's  position 159 

The  new  tariff 160 


Cobden's  impressions 161 

Speech  on  the  state  of  the  country .    .     164 
Reply  to  Sir  Robert  Peei 166 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Renewed  Activity  of  the  League  —  Cobdex  and  Sir  Robert  Peel- 
Rural  Campaign. 


The  League  and  the  workmen   .     .    .  166 

Renewed  activity 167 

Cobden  in  Scotland 169 

Mr.  Bright  upon  Scotland      ....  170 

Speech  on  Lord  Howick's  Motion  .     .  172 

Scene  with  Sir  Robert  Peel    ....  173 

Mr.  Roebuck's  attack 175 

Feeling  in  the  country 177 


Reply  to  the  Manchester  address    .    .  178 

Meetings  at  Drury  Lane 180 

Agitation  in  the  counties 181 

Interest  of  the  farmers 182 

Debates  with  landowners 186 

Questions  in  Parliament 188 

Occupations  in  the  recess 191 

Distrust  of  the  Whigs 193 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
The  Session  of  1844 — Factory  Legislation  —  The  Constituencies. 


Statistics  of  agitation 194 

Corn  Laws  in  the  background    .     .    .  196 

Ecclesiastical  property 198 

The  "Condition  of  England"    ...  199 


Factory  legislation 200 

English  forms  of  socialism    ....  203 

The  forty-shilling  franchise   ....  204 

Fox's  views  on  this  franchise    .    .    .  206 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

Bastiat — New  Tactics  —  Activity  in  Parliament - 
Private  Affairs. 


Maynooth  Grant  — 


Bastiat's  appearance  in  England     .     .  206 

Bastiat  and  the  Leaguers 208 

Seventh  year  of  the  League    ....  209 

Change  of  tactics 211 

Bright  and  the  Squires 212 

Important  speech 213 

Elocutionary  methods 214 


The  argument 215 

Disraeli's  position 217 

Prospects  of  the  question 218 

The  Catholic  grant 219 

Letters  to  Mrs.  Cobden 220 

Private  embarrassments   .....  222 

Letter  from  Mr.  Bright 224 


CHAPTER  XV. 

The  Autumn  of  1845. 


The  Edinburgh  letter 227 

The  Ministerial  crisis 228 

Renewed  agitation 229 

Proffer  of  office  to  Cobden      ....  230 


Sir  Robert  Peel  and  his  party    .     .    .  232 

Sir  Robert  Peel's  conversion      .     .     .  234 

Finances  of  the  League 235 

Reconciliation  with  Sir  Robert  Peel    .  237 


CHAPTER  XVI. 
Repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  and  Fall  of  the  Government. 


State  of  public  opinion  on  repeal    .     .  238 

Difficulties  of  Peel's  position      .     .     .  241 

Attitude  of  the  Whigs 242 

Proceedings  in  Parliament     ....  244 

Letter  to  George  Combe 245 

Cobden's  view  of  his  own  position      .  246 

Plans  for  the  future 248 


The  miseries  of  popularity    ....  249 

Letter  to  Mrs.  Cobden  ani  others  .     .  251 

Progress  of  the  Corn  Bill 254 

In  London  society 256 

Third  reading  of  the  Bill  in  the  House  257 

The  Bill  passes  the  Upper  House    .     .  259 

Peel's  final  tribute  to  Cobden    ...  260 


xu 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

CORKESPONDENCE  WITH  SiR  RoBERT  PeEL  —  CESSATION  OF  THE  LEAGUE. 


Peel  urged  to  dissolve  Parliament  .     .  261 

Opposite  views  of  Peel 266 

Letter  from  Lord  John  Russell   .     .     .  270 

Fuial  meeting  of  the  League  ....  271 


Its  peculiar  work      .......  272 

Fresh  projects 274 

Reflections  on  social  progress     .     .     .  275 

The  National  Testimonial      ....  277 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 


Tour  over  Europe^ 


Omens  of  revolution  in  Paris  .     .    . 
Cobden's  popularit}^'  among  strangers 
Interview  with  Louis  Philippe    .     . 

In  Spain , 

In  Southern  France 

In  Italy 

At  Rome 

Interview  with  the  Pope 

The  Campagna 

Naples  and  Turin 


279 
280 
281 
282 
283 
284 
286 
290 
291 
292 


The  Italian  lakes 294 

Venice  and  Trieste 295 

Interview  with  Prince  Metternich   .     .  296 

At  Babelsberg 298 

Berlin  and  Potsdam 300 

Stettin 301 

The  Russian  frontier 302 

Moscow       303 

St.  Petersburg 306 

Arrival  at  home 309 


CHAPTER  XIX. 
Election  for  the  West  Riding— Purchase  of  Dunford  — Correspondence. 


General  election 311 

Purchase  of  his  birthplace      ....  312 

Picture  of  rural  life  in  Sussex    .     .     .  313 

The  Spanish  Marriages 315 

Letter  to  Mr.  Bright 316 

On  a  mischievous  foreign  policy     .     .  317 

Complaints  from  Bastiat   .....  318 

The  Revolution  of  1848 319 


The  Revolution  in  France 322 

Work  in  Parliament 323 

*^he  Education  Question 325 

Letter  to  W.  R.  Greg 326 

To  Combe,  on  Ireland 327 

On  Dissent  from  one's  Party     .    .    .  331 

Position  in  Parliament 332 

The  People's  Budget 333 


CHAPTER  XX. 
1/    Miscellaneous  Correspondence  on  Social  and  Political  Movements 


New  plans  for  political  reform   .     .     .  334 

Letter  on  change  of  programme      .     .  335 

A  triumphal  celebration 337 

To  Combe,  on  National  Expenditure  .  338 

The  motion  for  Arbitration    ....  340 

The  Peace  Congress  at  Paris      .     .     .  341 


In  Versailles 

To  Mr.  Bright,  on  Ireland     . 
On  Parliamentary  Reform 
On  the  English  Land  Question 
To  Mr.  Bright,  on  Democracy 
To  Mr.  Livesey,  on  Temperance 


343 
344 
345 
346 
347 
349 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

The  Don  Pacifico  debate  — The  Papal  Aggression  — Correspondence 
with  Mr.  Bright  on  Reform  —  Kossuth. 


The  Hungarian  War  of  Independence  354 

Cobden's  denunciation  of  war  loans    .  356 

Root  of  Cobden's  feeling  about  war    .  357 

The  affair  of  Don  Pacifico     ....  358 

Issues  of  the  debate 360 

Death  of  Peel 361 

Stock-exchange  creditors 363 

Miscellaneous  notes 364 

Peace  Congress  at  Frankfort      ...  366 

The  No-popery  cry 368 


The  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill     ...  369 

Deadlock  of  parties 371 

Motion  for  negotiations  with  France    .  372 

Doubts  on  reform 374 

To  Mr.  Bright,  on  the  Land  Question  375 

Letter  on  the  Reform  movement     .     .  376 

Welcome  to  Kossuth 377 

To  Mr.  Bright,  in  explanation   .     .     .  379 

Mr.  Bright  and  Kossuth 380 

English  view  of  Russian  intervention  381 


CONTENTS. 


Xlll 


CHAPTER  XXn. 
The  Protectionists  in  Office. 


Fate  of  the  Whig  Ministry    ....  382 

Parliamentary  tactics 385 

Revival  of  the  League  ......  386 

Growth  of  the  military  spirit      .     .     .  387 

Cobden's  urgency  for  a  dissolution     .  388 


The  general  election 389 

The  Free  Traders  and  the  Ministry     .  391 

Humiliation  of  the  Protectionists    .    .  392 

Mr.  Disraeli's  Budget 394 

Fate  of  the  first  Derby  Ministry     .    .  395 


CHAPTER  XXIH. 
The  Panic  of  1853. 


Fear  of  French  invasion 396 

Public  rumors 397 

Pamphlet:.  "1792  and  1853"    ...  399 

The  war  of  1793 400 

Social  state  of  France  and  of  England  402 


French  feeling  for  Napoleon  ....  403 

Peace  Conference  at  Manchester     .    .  405 

Events  of  the  session 406 

Misrepresentation  of  this  movement   .  407 

Visit  to  Oxford 409 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 
The  Crimean  War. 


Origin  of  the  war 410 

Cobden's  policy  and  Palmerston's  .     .  411 

Mortification  of  Cobden  and  Bright     .  414 

Their  steadfastness 416 

Difficulties  of  a  Peace  party  ....  417 

Cobden's  speeches  on  the  war    .    .    .  418 


Letters  to  Mr.  Bright  .  .  . 
Letters  to  Colonel  Fitzmayer 
Sympathy  with  Mr.  Bright  . 
Louis  Napoleon  ..... 
Letter  to  M.  Chevalier  .  .  . 
Letter  to  Mr.  Ashworth    .    . 


419 
423 
424 
427 
428 
429 


Chapter  xxv. 

Death  of  his  Son. 


Terrible  news 

Violent  grief  of  Mrs.  Cobden 


431 1  Mr.  Bright's  illness 433 

432  1  Sojourn  in  Wales 434 


CHAPTER  XXVL 
Chinese  Affairs  —  Cobden's  Motion  —  The  Dissolution. 


Theaffairof  the  "Arrow"    ....  435 

Defeat  of  the  Ministry 437 

The  repulse  in  the  country    ....  439 

Letter  from  Mr.  Bright 440 


Cobden's  feeling 442 

Mr.  Bright's  election  at  Birmingham  .  443 

Charles  Sumner's  visit 4 

Views  of  parliamentary  life  ....  445 


CHAPTER  XXVIL 
The  Inpian  Mutiny — Private  Affairs — Second  Journey  to  America. 


East  India  Company  .  .  . 
Christianizing  the  Hindoos  . 
On  contact  with  inferior  races 
Sombre  outlook  in  India  .  . 
Misgivings  as  to  the  future  . 
On  the  transfer  of  land     .    . 


447 
449 
450 
451 
452 
454 


Demoralization  of  England  by  India  .  455 

Change  of  Government 457 

Private  anxieties 458 

Munificent  friendship 459 

Illinois  Central  Railroad 459 

United  States  in  1858 460 


CHAPTER  XXVIIL 

Return  from  America  —  The  new  Ministry. 

Ev^ts  during  his  absence     ....    461  j  Interview  with  Lord  Palmerston 
Arrival  at  Liverpool 463  I  Refusal  of  office 


.    464 
.    467 


XIV 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 
The  French  Teeatt. 


Chevalier's  visit 469 

With  Mr.  Gladstone  at  Hawarden  .    .  470 

Return  to  London 472 

Arrival  in  Paris 473 

Interview  with  the  Emperor  ....  474 

The  French  Minister 478 

The  Ministers  at  home 480 


The  Emperor's  hesitation.  .  .  . 
Second  interview  with  the  Emperor 
Cobden  receives  official  powers 
The  Emperor's  deviations 
Hostile  feeling  in  France  .  . 
The  treaty  signed  .... 
Principle  of  these  negotiations 


481 

482 
485 
486 
488 
489 
490 


CHAPTER  XXX. 
Holiday  and  Return  to  Paris. 


The  Italian  Question 491 

Interview  with  Prince  Metternich  .    .  493 

At  Cannes 496 

Return  to  Paris 497 


The  Question  of  Savoy     .    .    . 
Discussion  with  the  Emperor      . 

Prince  Napoleon 

Cobden' s  private  circumstances , 


498 
499 
501 
502 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 
The  Tariff  — The  Fortification  Scheme. 


Debates  on  the  treaty 503 

Nature  of  the  treaty 505 

Fresh  labors  in  Paris 50b 

The  Commission 508 

Social  intercourse 509 

Count  Persigny  on  the  Empire  ...  510 

Conversation  with  Prince  Napoleon    .  511 

The  proposal  for  fortifications    .    •    .  513 

Lord  Palmerston's  distrust    ....  515 

Mr.  Gladstone's  position 516 

Cobden'o  remonstrance 517 

Lord  Palmerston's  reply 519 


Lord  John  Russell's  reply     ....  520 

Effect  in  Paris 521 

M.  Rouher  on  Palmerston's  speech      .  522 

Interview  with  Prince  Napoleon     .     .  523 

Conversation  with  Count  Persigny      .  524 

Delay  in  signing  the  Convention    .    .  526 

The  Conventions  signed 527 

Cobden  and  Bright  with  the  Emperor  528 

Abolition  of  passports 529 

Reception  of  the  tariff  in  England  .     .  5dl 

Antipathy  to  the  English  Government  532 

Letter  from  Lord  Palraerston     ...  533 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 
The  Policy  of  the  Commercial  Treaty. 


Free  exchange 

State  of  the  question  in  1843  .     .     . 
Cobden's  vindication  of  the  treaty. 


535  I  Peculiarity  of  Cobden's  treaty 

536  Double  operation  of  the  treaty 

537  I  The  economic  circulation  .     . 


538 
539 
540 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 
Miscellaneous  Correspondence,  1859-60  -  Paris  -  Return  to  England. 


Letters  to  Mr.  Bright 542 

Mr.  Bright' s  public  appearances     .     .  544 

Condition  of  political  life 545 

Letters  to  William  Hargreaves  ...  546 

Napoleon  III.  as  a  writer 547 

The  state  of  Europe 548 

The  Turkish  Question  ......  549 


Sober  politics  of  Peel  and  Aberdeen 

British  rule  in  India 

Great  producers  —  The  counties      . 
The  English  working  class    .     .     . 

Life  in  Algiers 

Rights  of  women 

Last  interview  with  the  Emperor    . 


551 
552 
554 
555 
555 
556 
556 


THE 

LIFE   OF   RICHARD   COBDEN. 


LI 


CHAPTE 

EARLY  LIFE. 


Heyshott  is  a  hamlet  in  a  sequestered  corner  of  West  Sussex, 
not  many  miles  from  the  Hampshire  border.  It  is  one  of  the 
crests  that,  like  wooded  islands,  dot  the  great  Valley  of  the 
Weald.  Near  at  hand  the  red  housetops  of  Midhurst  sleep 
among  the  trees,  while  Chichester  lies  in  the  flats  a  dozen  miles 
away,  beyond  the  steep  escarpments  of  the  South  Downs,  that 
here  are  nearing  their  western  edge.  Heyshott  has  a  high  roll- 
ing upland  of  its  own,  part  of  the  majestic  wall  that  runs  from- 
Beachy  Head  almost  to  Portsmouth.  As  the  traveller  ascends 
the  little  neighboring  height  of  West  Lavington,  he  discerns  far 
off  to  the  left,  at  the  end  of  a  dim  line,  the  dark  clump  of  sentinel 
firs  at  Chanctonbury,  whence  one  may  look  forth  over  the  glisten- 
ing flood  of  the  Channel,  or  hear  the  waters  beat  upon  the  shore. 
The  country  around  Midhurst  is  sprinkled  thinly  with  farms  and 
modest  homesteads.  Patches  of  dark  forest  mingle  with  green 
spaces  of  common,  with  wide  reaches  of  heath,  with  ponds  flash- 
ing in  the  sunlight,  and  with  the  white  or  yellow  clearing  of  the 
fallows.  The  swelling  turf  of  the  headland,  looking  northward 
across  the  Weald  to  the  loved  companion  downs  of  Surrey,  is 
broken  by  soft  wooded  hollows,  where  the  shepherd  finds  a  shelter 
from  the  noontide  sun,  or  from  the  showers  that  are  borne  along 
in  the  driving  flight  of  the  southwest  wind. 

Here,  in  an  old  farmhouse,  known  as  Dunford,  Richard  Cobden  y 
was  born  on  June  3,  1804.  He  was  the  fourth  of  a  family  of 
eleven  children.  His  ancestors  were  yeomen  of  the  soil,  and  it  is 
said,  with  every  appearance  of  truth,  that  the  name  can  be  traced 
in  the  annals  of  the  district  as  far  back  as  the  fourteenth  century. 
The  antiquarians  of  the  county  have  found  out  that  one  Adam  de 
Coppdene  was  sent  to  Parliament  by  the  borough  of  Chichester  in 
1314.     There  is  talk  of  a  manor  of  Cobden  in  the  ninth  of  Ed- 


2       n.  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1804-19. 

ward  IV.  (1470).  In  1562  there  is  a  record  of  William  Cobden 
devising  lands  on  the  downs  in  Westdean.  Thomas  Cobden  of 
Midhurst  was  a  contributor  of  twenty-five  pounds  to  the  fund 
raised  for  resisting  the  Spanish  Armada.  When  hearth-money 
was  levied  in  1670,  Eichard  Cobden,  junior,  is  entered  as  paying 
for  seven  out  of  the  seventy-six  hearths  of  the  district.  In  the 
Sussex  election  poll-book  for  1734  a  later  Richard  Cobden  is  put 
down  as  a  voter  for  the  parish  of  Midhurst,  and  four  or  five  oth- 
ers are  entered  as  freeholders  in  other  parts  of  West  Sussex. 
The  best  opinion  seems  to  be  that  the  settlement  of  the  Cobdens 
at  Midhurst  took  place  some  time  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
that  they  were  lineal  descendants  of  Sir  Adam  and  Sir  Ralph  of 
former  ages. 

However  all  this  may  be,  the  five  hundred  years  that  inter- 
vened had  nursed  no  great  prosperity.  Cobden's  grandfather  and 
namesake  was  a  maltster  and  farmer,  and  filled  for  several  years 
the  principal  office  of  bailiff  for  the  borough  of  Midhurst.  When 
he  died  in  1809,  he  left  a  very  modest  property  behind  him. 
Dunford  was  sold,  and  William  Cobden,  the  only  son  of  Richard 
the  elder,  and  the  father  of  the  Richard  Cobden  with  whom  we 
are  concerned,  removed  to  a  small  farm  on  the  outskirts  of  Mid- 
hurst. He  was  a  man  of  soft  and  affectionate  disposition,  but 
wholly  without  the  energy  of  affairs.  He  was  the  gentlest  and 
kindest  of  men.  Honest  and  upright  himself,  he  was  incapable 
of  doubting  the  honesty  and  uprightness  of  others.  He  was 
cheated  without  suspecting  it,  and  he  had  not  force  of  character 
enough  to  redeem  a  fortune  which  gradually  slipped  away  from 
him.  Poverty  oozed  in  with  gentle  swiftness,  and  lay  about 
him  like  a  dull  cloak  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  llis  wife,  the 
mother  of  Richard  Cobden,  had  borne  the  gracious  maiden-name 
of  Millicent  Amber.  Unlike  her  kindly  helpless  husband,  she 
was  endowed  with  native  sense,  shrewdness,  and  force  of  mind, 
but  the  bravery  of  women  in  such  cases  can  seldom  avail  against 
the  shiftlessness  of  men.  The  economic  currents  of  the  time 
might  seem  to  have  been  all  in  their  favor.  The  war  and  the 
scarcity  which  filled  all  the  rest  of  the  country  with  distress, 
rained  gold  upon  farmers  and  landlords.  In  the  five  years  during 
which  WilHam  Cobden  was  at  Guillard's  Oak  (1809-13),  the  av- 
erage price  of  wheat  was  just  short  of  five  pounds  a  quarter.  In 
spite  of  tithes,  of  war-taxes,  and  of  tremendous  poor-rates,  the 
landowners  extracted  royal  rents,  and  the  farmers  drove  a  roaring 
trade.  To  what  use  William  Cobden  put  these  good  times,  we  do 
not  know.  After  the  harvest  of  1813,  the  prospect  of  peace  came, 
and  with  it  a  collapse  of  the  artificial  inflation  of  the  grain  markets. 
Insolvency  and  distraint  became  familiar  words  in  the  farmhouses 
that  a  few  months  before  had  been  revelling  in  plenty. 


iEx.  1-15.]  EARLY  LIFE.  3 

William  Cobden  was  not  the  man  to  contrive  an  escape  from 
financial  disaster.  In  1814  the  farm  was  sold,  and  they  moved 
from  home  to  home  until  at  length  they  made  a  settlement  at 
Westmeon,  near  Alton  in  Hampshire.  His  neighbors  were  as 
unfortunate  as  himself,  for  Cobden  was  able  to  say  in  later  years 
that  when  he  returned  to  his  native  place,  he  found  that  many  of 
those  who  were  once  his  playfellows  had  sunk  down  to  the  rank 
of  laborers,  and  some  of  them  were  even  working  on  the  roads. 

It  is  one  of  the  privileges  of  strength  to  add  to  its  own  the  y 
burdens  of  the  weak,  and  helpful  kinsfolk  are  constantly  found 
for  those  whom  character  or  outer  circumstance  has  submerged. 
Eelatives  of  his  own,  or  his  wife's,  charged  themselves  with  the 
maintenance  of  William  Cobden's  dozen  children.  Eichard,  less^/ 
happy  than  the  others,  was  taken  away  from  a  dame's  school  at 
Midhurst,  and  cheerful  tending  of  the  sheep  on  his  father's 
farm,  and  was  sent  by  his  mother's  brother-in-law,  a  merchant  in 
London,  to  a  school  in  Yorkshire.  Here  he  remained  for  five 
years,  a  grim  and  desolate  time,  of  which  he  could  never  after- 
wards endure  to  speak.  This  was  twenty  years  before  the  vivid 
genius  and  racy  style  of  Dickens  had  made  the  ferocious  brutal- 
ities of  Squeers  and  the  horrors  of  Dotheboys  Hall  as  univer- 
sally familiar  as  the  best-known  scenes  of  Shakespeare.  The 
unfortunate  boy  from  his  tenth  to  his  fifteenth  year  was  ill  fed, 
ill  taught,  ill  used ;  he  never  saw  parent  or  friend ;  and  once  in 
each  quarter  he  was  allowed  such  singular  relief  to  his  feelings 
as  finds  official  expression  in  the  following  letter  (March  25, 
1817):  — 

"  Honored  Parents,  —  You  cannot  tell  what  rapture  I  feel  at 
my  once  more  having  the  pleasure  of  addressing  my  Parents,  and 
though  the  distance  is  so  great,  yet  I  have  an  opportunity  of  con- 
veying it  to  you  free  of  expense.  It  is  now  turned  three  years 
since  our  separation  took  place,  and  I  assure  you  I  look  back  with 
more  pleasure  to  that  period  than  to  any  other  part  of  my  life 
which  was  spent  to  no  effectual  purpose,  and  I  beg  to  return  you 
my  most  sincere  thanks  as  being  the  means  of  my  gaining  such  a 
sense  of  learning  as  will  enable  me  to  gain  a  genteel  livelihood 
whenever  I  am  called  into  the  world  to  do  for  myself" 

It  was  not  until  1819  that  this  cruel  and  disgusting  mockery 
of  an  education  came  to  an  end.  Cobden  was  received  as  a  clerk 
in  his  uncle's  warehouse  in  Old  Change.  It  was  some  time  before 
things  here  ran  easily.  Nothing  is  harder  to  manage,  on  either 
side,  than  the  sense  of  an  obligation  conferred  or  received. 
Cobden's  uncle  and  aunt  expected  servility  in  the  place  of  grati- 
tude, and,  in  his  own  phrase,  "  inflicted  rather  than  bestowed  their 


4  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1819-25. 

bounties."  They  especially  disapproved  of  his  learning  French 
lessons  in  the  early  hours  of  the  morning  in  his  bedroom,  and 
his  fondness  for  book-knowledge  was  thought  of  evil  omen  for 
his  future  as  a  man  of  business.  The  position  became  so  un- 
pleasant, that  in  1822  Cobden  accepted  the  offer  of  a  situation 
in  a  house  of  business  at  Ghent.  It  promised  considerable 
advantages,  but  his  father  would  not  give  his  approval,  and  Cob- 
den after  some  demur  fell  in  with  his  father's  wish.  He  remained 
where  he  was,  and  did  not  quarrel  with  such  opportunity  as  he 
had,  simply  because  he  had  missed  a  better.  It  is  one  of  the 
familiar  puzzles  of  life,  that  those  whose  want  of  energy  has  sunk 
their  lives  in  failure  are  often  so  eager  to  check  and  disparage 
the  energy  of  stronger  natures  than  their  own. 

William  Cobden's  letters  all  breathe  a  soft  domesticity  which 
is  more  French  than  English,  and  the  only  real  discomfort  of  his 
poverty  to  him  seems  to  have  been  a  weak  regret  that  he  could 
not  have  his  family  constantly  around  his  hearth.     Frederick,  his 
eldest  son,  was  in  the  United  States  for  several  years ;  his  father 
was  always  gently  importunate  for  his  return.     In  1824  he  came 
home,  having  done  nothing  by  his  travels  towards  bettering  for- 
tunes that  remained  stubbornly  unprosperous  to  the  end  of  his 
life.     Between  Frederick  Cobden  and  Richard  there  always  ex- 
isted  the    warmest   friendship,  and  when   the   former   found   a 
situation  in  London,  their  intercourse  was  constant  and  intimate. 
There  were  three  younger  brothers,  Charles,  Miles,  and  Henry  ; 
and  Richard  Cobden  was  no  sooner  in  receipt  of  a  salary,  than 
he  at  once  took  the  place  of  a  father  to  them,  besides  doing  all 
that  he  could  to  brighten   the  shabby  poverty  of  the  home  at 
Westmeon.     Whenever  he  had  a  holiday,  he  spent  it  there  ;  a 
hamper  of  such  good  cheer  as  his  purse  could  afford  was  never 
missing  at  Christmas;   and  on  the  long  Sundays  in  summer  he 
knew  no  happier  diversion  than  to  walk  out  to  meet  his  father 
at  some  roadside  inn  on  the  wide  Surrey  heaths,  midway  between 
Alton  and  the  great  city.     His  little  parchment-bound  diary  of 
i  expenses  at  this  time  shows  him  to  us  as  learning  to  dance  and 
1  to  box  playing  cards  with  alternating  loss  and  gain,  going  now 
and  again  to  Vauxhall  Gardens,  visiting  the  theatre  to  see  Charles 
Matthews,  buying  Brougham  on  Popular  Education,  Franklin's 
Essays,  and  Childe  Harold.     The  sums  are  puny  enough,  but  a 
crentle  spirit  seems  still  to  breathe  in  the  poor  faded  lines  and 
quaint  French  in  which  he  made  his  entries,  as  we  read  of  the 
little  gifts  to  his  father  and  brothers,  and  how  he  is  debtor  by 
charit4,  Is.  —  donne  un  pauvre  gargon,  Id.  —  un  pauvre  gargon,  2d. 
By-and-by  the  sombre  Shadow  fell  upon  them  all.     In  1825  the 
oood  mother  of  the  house  helped  to  nurse  a  neighbor's  sick  child, 
in  the  midst  of  an  epidemic  of  typhoid;   she  caught  the  fever, 


^T.  15-21.]  EARLY   LIFE.  6 

and  died  at  the  age  of  eight  and  forty.  "  Our  sorrow  would  be 
torment,"  Frederick  Cobden  wrote  to  his  father,  "  if  we  could  not 
reflect  on  our  conduct  towards  that  dear  soul,  without  calling  to 
mind  one  instance  in  which  we  had  wilfully  given  her  pain." 
And  with  this  gentle  solace  they  seem  to  have  had  good  right  to 
soothe  their  affliction. 

The  same  year  which  struck  Cobden  this  distressing  blow, 
brought  him  promotion  in  his  business.  The  early  differences 
between  himself  and  his  uncle  had  been  smoothed  away  by  his 
industry,  cheerfulness,  and  skill,  and  he  had  won  the  approval 
and  good-will  of  his  employers.  From  the  drudgery  of  the 
warehouse,  he  was  now  advanced  to  the  glories  of  the  road.  We 
may  smile  at  the  keen  elation  with  which  he  looked  to  this  pre- 
ferment from  the  position  of  clerk  to  that  of  traveller ;  but  human 
dignities  are  only  relative,  and  a  rise  in  the  hierarchy  of  trade  is 
doubtless  as  good  matter  for  exultation,  as  a  rise  in  hierarchies 
more  elaborately  robed.  Cobden's  new  position  was  peculiarly 
suited  to  the  turn  of  his  character.  Collecting  accounts  and 
soliciting  orders  for  muslins  and  calicoes  gave  room  in  their 
humble  sphere  for  those  high  inborn  qualities  of  energy,  and 
sociability,  which  in  later  years  produced  the  most  active  and  the 
most  persuasive  of  popular  statesmen.  But  what  made  the  life 
of  a  traveller  so  specially  welcome  to  Cobden  was  the  gratification 
that  it  offered  to  the  master-passion  of  his  life,  an  insatiable 
desire  to  know  the  affairs  of  the  world.  Famous  men,  who  be- 
came his  friends  in  the  years  to  come,  agree  in  the  admission  that 
they  have  never  known  a  man  in  whom  this  trait  of  a  sound  and 
rational  desire  to  know  and  to  learn  was  so  strong  and  so  inex-  ^ 
haustible.  It  was  not  the  curiosity  of  the  infantile  dabbler  in  all 
subjects,  random  and  superficial ;  and  yet  it  was  as  far  removed 
from  the  dry  parade  of  the  mere  tabulist  and  statistician.  It  was 
not  bookish,  for  Cobden  always  felt  that  much  of  what  is  best 
worth  knowing  is  never  written  in  books.  Nor  was  it  the  / 
curiosity  of  a  speculative  understanding;  yet,  as  we  shall  see 
presently,  there  soon  grew  up  in  his  mind  a  body  of  theoretic 
principles,  and  a  philosophic  conception  of  modern  society,  round 
which  the  knowledge  so  strenuously  sought  was  habitually 
grouped,  and  by  which  the  desire  to  learn  was  gradually  directed 
and  configured. 

The  information  to  be  gathered  in  coaches  and  in  the  commer- 
cial rooms  of  provincial  hotels  was  narrow  enough  in  some  senses,  ' 
but  it  was  varied,  fresh,  and  in  real  matter.  To  a  man  of  Cobden's 
active  and  independent  intelligence  this  contact  with  such  a 
diversity  of  interest  and  character  was  a  congenial  process  of 
education.  Harsh  circumstance  had  left  no  other  education  openv 
to  him.     There  is  something  pathetic  in  an  exclamation  of  one  of 


6  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1825-26. 

his  letters  of  tins  period,  not  merely  because  it  concerns  a  man 
of  Cobden's  eminence  and  public  service,  but  because  it  is  the 
case  of  thousands  of  less  conspicuous  figures.  In  his  first  journey 
(August  — October,  1825)  he  was  compelled  to  wait  for  half  a 
day 'at  Shrewsbury,  for  a  coach  to  Manchester.  He  went  to  the 
abbey,  and  was  greatly  impressed  by  its  venerable  walls  and 
painted  glass.  "  Oh  that  I  had  money,"  he  says  to  his  brother, 
in  plain  uncultured  speech,  "  to  be  deep  skilled  in  the  mysteries 
of  mullions  and  architraves,  in  lieu  of  black  and  purple  and  pm 
grounds  !  How  happy  I  should  be ! "  He  felt  as  keenly  as  Byron 
himself  how 

The  lore 
Of  mighty  minds  doth  hallow  in  the  core 
Of  human  hearts  the  ruin  of  a  wall, 
Where  dwelt  the  wise  and  wondrous. 

In  his  second  journey  he  visited  the  birthplace  of  Eobert  Burns, 
and  he  wrote  to  his  brother  from  Aberdeen  (Feb.  5,  1826) :  —  *'  It 
is  a  sort  of  gratification  that  I  am  sure  you  can  imagine,  but  which 
I  cannot  describe,  to  feel  conscious  of  treading  upon  the  same 
spot  of  earth,  of  viewing  the  same  surrounding  objects,  and  of 
beincT  sheltered  by  the  same  roof,  as  one  who  equally  astonished 
and  "delighted  the  world."     He  describes  himself  as  boiling  over 
with  enthusiasm  upon  approaching  "  Alloway's  auld  haunted  kirk," 
the  Brig  o'  Doon,  and  the  scene  of  Tam  o'  Shanter's  headlong  ride. 
With  a  pang  of  disillusion  he  found  the  church  so  small  that 
Cuttie-Sark  and  her  hellish  legion  can  have  had  scanty  space  for 
their  capering,  while  the  distance  to  the  middle  of  the  old  bridge, 
and  the  length  of  the  furious  immortal  chase,  can  have  been  no 
more  than  one  hundred  yards.     The  party  on  this  occasion  were 
accompanied  by  a  small  manufacturer  from  Paisley,  who  cared 
little  for  the  genius  of  the  place,  and  found  Cobden's  spirit  of 
hero-worship  tiresome.     "  Our  worthy  Paisley  friend  remarked  to 
us  as  we  leaned  over  the  Bridge  of  Doon,  and  as  its  impetuous 
stream  rushed  beneath  us,  'How  shamefully,'  said  he,  'is  the 
water-power  of  this  country  suffered  to  run  to  waste :  here  is  the 
force  of  twenty  horses  running  completely  idle.'     He  did  not 
relish  groping  among  ruins  and  tombstones  at  midnight,  and  was 
particularly  solicitous  that  we  should  leave  matters  of  discussion 
until  we  reached  Burns's  birthplace,  where  he  understood  that  they 
kept  the  best  whiskey  in  that  vicinity."    To  Burns's  birthplace  at 
leno-th  they  came,  where  at  first  their  reception  was  not  cordial. 
"  But  my  worthy  friend  from  Paisley  had  not  forgotten  the  whis- 
key and  so,  tapping  the  chin  of  the  old  dame  with  his  forefinger, 
he  bade  her  bring  a  half-mutchkin  of  the  best,  'to  set  the  wheels 
goino-,'  as  he  termed  it,  and,  having  poured  out  a  glass  for  the 
hostess,  which  she  swallowed,  I  was  pleased  to  find  that  it  did  set 


^T.  21.]  EARLY  LIFE.  7 

the  wheels  of  her  tongue  going.  '  Ye  would  maybe  like  to  gang 
and  see  the  verra  spot  where  poor  Kobbie  was  borned/  she  said, 
and  we  instantly  begged  her  to  show  it  to  us.  She  took  us  along 
a  very  short  passage,  and  into  a  decent-looking  kitchen  with  a 
good  fire.  There  was  a  curtain  hung  from  the  ceiling  to  the  Hoor, 
which  appeared  to  cover  one  part  of  the  wall.  She  drew  aside 
the  curtain,  and  it  disclosed  a  bed  in  the  recess  of  the  wall,  and 
a  man  who  had  been  hidden  in  the  clothes  first  put  his  head  out 
and  looked  round  in  stupid  amazement,  and  then  rose  up  in  the 
bed  and  exclaimed,  '  What  the  deil  hae  ye  got  here,  Lizzie  ? ' 
'  Whisht,  whisht,  gudeman  ! '  said  the  old  dame,  out  of  whose  head 
the  whiskey  had  driven  all  thoughts  of  her  husband,  '  the  gentle- 
men will  be  verra  pleased  to  hear  ye  tell  them  a'  about  poor 
Eobbie.'  Our  Paisley  friend  had  again  poured  out  a  glass  of 
whiskey  and  presented  it  to  our  host,  who  drank  it  off,  and, 
bringing  his  elbow  round  with  a  knowing  flourish,  he  returned 
the  glass  upside  down,  to  show  he  drank  clean.  '  I  knew  Robbie 
weel,'  said  he,  wiping  his  mouth  with  his  shirt-sleeve.  '  I  was 
the  last  man  that  drank  wi'  him  afore  he  left  this  country  for 
Dumfries.  Oh,  he  was  a  bonnie  bairn,  but  owre  muckle  gien  to 
braw  company.'  'And  this  is  the  spot,  gentlemen,'  said  the 
impatient  gudewife,  catching  the  narrative  from  her  husband, 
*  where  Robbie  was  borned,  and  sic  a  night  that  was,  as  I  have 
heard  Nancy  Miller,  the  coachman's  mither,  say ;  it  blew,  and 
rained,  and  thundered,  just  like  as  if  heaven  and  earth  were 
dinged  thegither,  and  ae  corner  of  the  house  was  blawn  away 
afore  the  morning,  and  so  they  removed  the  mither  and  the  bairn 
into  the  next  room  the  day  after.'  Now  I  believe,  if  these  two 
bodies  were  put  upon  their  oath  to  all  they  told  us,  that  they 
would  not  be  guilty  of  falsehood  or  perjury,  for  I  am  quite  sure 
they  are  both  persuaded  that  their  tale  is  true,  and  from  no  other 
cause  than  that  they  have  told  it  so  often.  And  yet  I  would 
venture  to  bet  all  I  possess,  and  what  is  more,  all  I  owe,  that  they 
never  saw  Burns  in  all  their  lives."  ^ 

The  genial  eye  for  character  and  the  good-humored  tolerance 
of  foibles,  which  so  singularly  distinguished  Cobden  in  the  days-^ 
when  he  came  to  act  with  men  for  public  objects,  are  conspicuous 
in  these  early  letters.  His  hospitable  observation,  even  in  this  ru- 
dimentar}^  stage,  seemed  to  embrace  all  smaller  matters  as  well  as 
great.  Though  he  was  little  more  than  one  and  twenty,  he  had 
already  a  sense  for  those  great  facts  of  society  which  are  so  much 
more  important  than  landscape  and  the  picturesque,  whether  in 
books  or  travels,  yet  for  which  the  eye  and  thought  of  adoles- 
cence are  usually  trained  to  be  so  dull.     On  his  first  journey  in 

1  To  F.  Cobden,  Feb.  5,  1826. 


8  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1825-26. 

Ireland  (September,  1825),  he  notices  how  immediately  after 
the  traveller  leaves  Dublin  "  you  are  reminded  by  the  miserable 
tenements  in  the  roadside  that  you  are  in  the  land  of  poverty, 
ignorance,  and  misrule.  Although  my  route  afforded  a  favorable 
specimen  of  the  Irish  peasantry,  it  was  a  sight  truly  heart-rending. 
There  appears  to  be  no  middle  class  in  Ireland :  there  are  the  rich, 
and  those  who  are  objects  of  wretchedness  and  almost  starvation. 
We  passed  through  some  collections  of  huts  called  towns,  where 
I  observed  the  pig  taking  his  food  in  the  same  room  with  the 
family,  and  where  I  am  told  he  is  always  allowed  to  sleep.  Shoes 
and  stockings  are  luxuries  that  neither  men  nor  women  often 
aspire  to.  Their  cabins  are  made  of  mud  or  sometimes  stone.  I 
observed  many  without  any  glass,  and  they  rarely  contain  more 
than  one  room,  which  answers  the  purpose  of  sitting-room  and 
sleeping-room  for  themselves  and  their  pig." 

Even  in  Dublin  itself  he  saw  what  made  an  impression  upon 
him,  which  ten  years  later  he  tried  to  convey  to  the  readers  of  his 
first  pamphlet.  "  The  river  Liffey  intersects  the  city,  and  ships 
of  200  tons  may  anchor  nearly  in  the  heart  of  Dublin ;  but  it  is 
here  the  stranger  is  alone  disappointed ;  the  small  number  of 
shipping  betrays  their  limited  commerce.  It  is  melancholy  to 
see  their  spacious  streets  (into  some  of  which  the  whole  tide  of 
Cheapside  might  with  ease  move  to  and  fro),  with  scarcely  a  vehi- 
cle through  their  whole  extent.  Whilst  there  is  so  little  circula- 
tion in  the  heart,  can  it  be  wondered  at  that  the  extremities  are 
poor  and  destitute  ? "  ^ 

If  one  side  of  Cobden's  active  and  flexible  mind  was  interested 
by  these  miserable  scenes,  another  side,  as  we  have  safd,  was 
touched  by  the  strange  whimsicalities  of  man.  In  February, 
1826,  he  crossed  from  Donaghadee,  on  the  northwest  coast  of 
Ireland,  to  Portpatrick. 

"  Our  captain  was  named  Paschal  —  he  was  a  short  figure,  but 
made  the  most  of  a  little  matter  by  strutting  as  upright  as  a  dart, 
and  throwing  back  his  head,  and  putting  forward  his  little  chest 
in  an  attitude  of  defiance.  It  appeared  to  be  the  ambition  of  our 
little  commander  to  make  matters  on  board  his  little  dirty  steam- 
boat wear  the  same  air  of  magnitude  as  on  board  a  seventy-four. 
I  afterwards  learned  he  had  once  been  captain  on  board  of  a  king's 
ship.  His  orders  were  all  given  through  a  ponderous  trumpet, 
although  his  three  men  could  not  be  more  than  ten  yards  distant 
from  him.  Still  he  bore  the  air  of  a  gentleman,  and  was  accus- 
tomed to  have  the  fullest  deference  paid  him  by  his  three  seamen. 
On  approaching  near  the  Harbor  of  Portpatrick,  our  captain  put 
his  huge  trumpet  down  the  hole  that  led  below,  and  roared  out, 

1  To  F.  Cobden,  Sept.  20,  1825. 


.ffiT.  21-22.]  EARLY  LIFE.  9 

at  the  risk  of  stunning  ns  all, '  Steward-boy,  bring  up  a  gun  car- 
tridge, and  have  a  care  you  don't  take  a  candle  into  the  Maga- 
zine I '  The  order  was  obeyed,  the  powder  was  carried  up,  and 
after  a  huge  deal  of  preparation  and  bustling  to  and  fro  on  the 
deck,  the  trumpet  was  again  poked  down  to  a  level  with  our  ears, 
and  the  steward  was  again  summoned  to  bring  up  a  match.  Soon 
after  which  we  heard  the  report  of  something  upon  deck  like  the 
sound  of  a  duck-gun.  After  that,  the  order  was  given,  'All  hands 
to  the  larboard — clear  the  gangway  and  lower  the  larboard  steps,' 
or  in  other  words,  'Help  the  passengers  to  step  on  to  the  pier.'  "^ 

In  the  same  letter  he  congratulates  himself  on  having  been 
fortunate  enough,  when  he  strolled  into  the  Court  of  Session,  to 
see  Jeffery,  Cockburn,  and  Sir  Walter  Scott.  One  cannot  pass 
the  mention  of  the  last  and  greatest  of  the  three,  —  the  bravest, 
soundest-hearted,  and  most  lovable  of  men,  —  without  noting  that 
this  day,  when  Cobden  saw  him,  was  only  removed  by  three 
weeks  from  "that  awful  seventeenth  of  January,"  when  Scott 
received'  the  staggering  blow  of  desperate  and  irretrievable  ruin. 
It  was  only  ten  days  before  that  he  had  gone  to  the  Court  for 
the  first  time,  '^  and,  like  the  man  with  the  large  nose,  thought 
that  everybody  was  thinking  of  him  and  his  mishaps." 

This,  in  fact,  was  the  hour  of  one  of  the  most  widely  disastrous 
of  those  financial  crashes  which  sweep  over  the  country  from' 
time  to  time  like  great  periodic  storms.  The  ruin  of  1825  and 
1826  was  never  forgotten  by  those  who  had  intelligence  enough 
to  be  alive  to  what  was  going  on  before  their  eyes.  The  whirl- 
wind that  shook  the  fabric  of  Scott's  prosperity  to  the  ground, 
involved  Cobden's  humbler  fortunes  in  a  less  imposing  catastro- 
phe. His  employers  failed  (February,  1826),  as  did  so  many 
thousands  of  others,  and  he  was  obliged  to  spend  some  time  in 
unwelcome  holiday  at  Westmeon. 

Affairs  were  as  straitened  under  his  father's  roof  as  they  had 
always  been.  The  sun  was  not  likely  to  be  shining  in  that  little 
particular  spot,  if  the  general  sky  were  dull.  The  perturbations 
of  the  great  ocean  were  felt  even  in  that  small  circle,  and,  while 
retail  customers  at  their  modest  shop  were  reluctant  to  buy  or 
unable  to  pay,  the  wholesale  provider  in  London  was  forced  to 
narrow  his  credit  and  call  in  his  debts.  The  family  stood  closely 
to  one  another  in  the  midst  of  a  swarm  of  shabby  embarrass- 
ments, and  their  neighbors  looked  on  in  friendly  sympathy,  impo- 
tent to  help.  Strangely  enough,  as  some  may  think,  they  do  not 
seem  to  have  been  very  unhappy.  They  were  all  blessed  by 
nature  with  a  kind  of  blissful  mercurial  simplicity,  that  hindered 
their  anxieties  from  eating  into  character.     Their  healthy  buoy- 

"^  ToF.  Cobden, 


10  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1826-28. 

ancy  would  not  allow  carking  care  to  put  the  sun  out  in  the 
heavens.  When  things  were  dreariest,  Eichard  Cobden  rowed 
himself  across  the  Solent  and  back,  and  with  one  of  his  sisters 
enjoyed  cheery  days  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  among  his  kinsfolk 
at  Chichester  and  elsewhere.  Perhaps  it  was  fortunate  that  his 
energetic  spirit  was  free  for  the  service  of  his  family,  at  a  moment 
when  they  seemed  to  be  sinking  below  the  surface.  It  was  clear 
that  means  for  the  support  of  the  household  could  only  be  found 
in  some  more  considerable  place  than  Westmeon.  Presently  it 
was  resolved  to  migrate  to  Farnham,  renowned  for  the  excellence 
of  its  hop-gardens,  for  the  stateliest  of  episcopal  castles,  and  for 
its  associations  with  two  of  the  finest  writers  of  English  prose, 
William  Cobbett,  who  was  the  son  of  a  Farnham  cottager,  and  Jona- 
than Swift,  who  had  been  Sir  William  Temple's  secretary  at  Moor 
Park  a  mile  or  two  away.  Thinking  less  of  any  of  these  things 
than  of  the  hard  eternal  puzzle  how  to  make  sure  of  food  and 
a  roof-tree  in  the  world,  William  Cobden  migrated  hither  in  the 
beginning  of  1827.  "  The  thought  of  leaving  this  dear 'village," 
one  of  his  daughters  had  written  (July,  1826),  "  endeared  to  us 
by  a  thousand  tender  recollections,  makes  me  completely  misera- 
ble." This  dejection  was  shared  in  a  supreme  degree  by  the 
head  of  the  household.  He  found  some  consolation  in  the  good- 
will that  he  left  behind  him ;  and  his  old  neighbors,  when  they 
were  busy  with  turnip-sowing,  hay-making,  and  sheep-shearing, 
were  wont  to  invite  him,  partly  for  help  and  work,  and  partly  for 
kindly  fellowship's  sake,  to  pay  them  long  visits,  never  failing 
to  send  a  horse  up  the  road  to  meet  him  for  his  convenience  and 
the  furtherance  of  his  journey. 

Eichard  Cobden,  meanwhile,  had  found  a  situation  in  London, 
in  the  warehouse  of  Partridge  and  Price.  Mr.  Partridge  had  for 
seven  years  been  one  of  Cobden's  employers  in  the  house  which 
had  failed,  and  he  now  resumed  business  with  a  new  partner. 
He  had  learned,  in  his  own  words,  Cobden's  capacity  of  rendering 
himself  pre-eminently  useful,  and  he  re-engaged  him  after  a  cer- 
tain effort  to  drive  a  hard  bargain  as  to  salary.  In  September, 
1826,  Cobden  again  set  out  on  the  road  with  his  samples  of  mus- 
lin and  calico  prints.  He  continued  steadily  at  work  for  two 
years,  travelling  on  an  average,  while  on  his  circuit,  at  what  was 
then  thought,  when  the  Manchester  and  Liverpool  railway  was 
only  in  course  of  construction,  the  brisk  rate  of  forty  miles  a  day. 

Two  years  afterwards,  in  1828,  Cobden  took  an  important  step. 
He  and  two  friends  who  were  in  the  same  trade  determined  to 
begin  business  on  their  own  account.  The  scheme  of  the  three 
friends  was  to  go  to  Manchester,  and  there  to  make  an  arrange- 
ment with  some  large  firm  of  calico-printers  for  selling  goods  on 
commission.     More  than  half  of  the  little  capital  was  borrowed. 


^T.  22-24.]  EARLY  LIFE.  11 

When  the  scheme  first  occurred  to  Cobden,  he  is  said  to  have 
gone  to  Mr.  Lewis  of  the  well-known  firm  in  Kegent  Street,  to 
have  laid  the  plan  before  him,  and  asked  for  a  loan.  The  bor- 
rower's sanguine  eloquence,  advising  a  project  that  in  itself  was 
not  irrational,  proved  successful,  and  Mr.  Lewis's  advance  was 
supplemented  by  a  further  sum  from  a  private  friend. 

Cobden  wrote  many  years  afterwards:  "I  began  business  in 
partnership  with  two  other  young  men,  and  we  only  mustered  a 
thousand  pounds  amongst  us,  and  more  than  half  of  it  was  bor- 
rowed. We  all  got  on  the  Peveril  of  the  Peak  coach,  and  went 
from  London  to  Manchester  in  the,  at  that  day  [September,  1828], 
marvellously  short  space  of  twenty  hours.  We  were  literally  so 
ignorant  of  Manchester  houses  that  we  called  for  a  directory  at 
the  hotel,  and  turned  to  the  list  of  calico-printers,  theirs  being 
the  business  with  which  we  were  acquainted,  and  they  being  the 
people  from  whom  we  felt  confident  we  could  obtain  credit.  And 
why  ?  Because  we  knew  we  should  be  able  to  satisfy  them  that 
we  had  advantages  from  our  large  connections,  our  knowledge  of 
the  best  branch  of  the  business  in  London,  and  our  superior  taste 
in  design,  which  would  insure  success.  We  introduced  ourselves 
to  Fort  Brothers  and  Co.,  a  rich  house,  and  we  told  our  tale,  hon- 
estly concealing  nothing.  In  less  than  two  years  from  1830  we 
owed  them  forty  thousand  pounds  for  goods  which  they  had  sent 
to  us  in  Watling  Street,  upon  no  other  security  than  our  charac- 
ters and  knowledge  of  our  business.  I  frequently  talked  with 
them  in  later  times  upon  the  great  confidence  they  showed  in 
men  who  avowed  that  they  were  not  possessed  of  200/.  each. 
Their  answer  was  that  they  would  always  prefer  to  trust  young 
men  with  connections  and  with  a  knowledge  of  their  trade,  if  they 
knew  them  to  possess  character  and  ability,  to  those  who  started 
with  capital  without  these  advantages,  and  that  they  had  acted 
on  this  principle  successfully  in  all  parts  of  the  world."  ^ 

This  is  from  a  letter  written  to  express  Cobden's  firm  belief  in 
the  general  circumstance,  "that  it  is  the  character,  experience, 
and  connections  of  the  man  wanting  credit,  his  knowledge  of  his 
business,  and  opportunities  of  making  it  available  in  the  struggle 
of  life,  that  weigh  with  the  shrewd  capitalist  far  more  than  the 
actual  command  of  a  few  thousands  more  or  less  of  money  in 
hand."  We  may  find  reason  to  think  that  Cobden's  temperament 
perhaps  inclined  him  to  push  this  excellent  truth  somewhat  too 
far.  Meanwhile,  the  sun  of  kindly  hope  shone.  The  situation 
is  familiar  to  all  who  have  had  their  own  way  to  make  from 
obscurity  to  success,  whether  w^aiting  for  good  fortune  in  Temple 
chambers,  or  a  publisher's  anteroom,  or  the  commercial  parlor  of 

1  Letter  to  Mr.  W.  S.  Lindsay,  March  24,  1866. 


12  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1828-32. 

some  provincial  Crown  or  Unicorn.  "  During  the  time  we  have 
been  here,"  Cobden  wrote  from  Manchester,  while  affairs  were 
still  unsettled,  "  we  have  been  in  a  state  of  suspense,  and  you 
would  be  amused  to  see  us  but  for  one  day.  Oh,  such  a  change 
of  moods !  This  moment  we  are  all  jocularity  and  laughter,  and 
the  next  we  are  mute  as  fishes  and  grave  as  owls.  To  do  our- 
selves justice,  I  must  say  that  our  croakings  do  not  generally  last 
more  than  five  minutes." 

Intense  anxiety  for  the  success  of  the  undertaking  was  briglit- 
ened  by  modest  hopes  of  profits,  of  which  a  share  of  one  third  should 
amount  to  eight  hundred  pounds  a  year.  And  in  Cobden's  case 
these  hopes  received  a  suffusion  of  generous  color  from  the  prospect 
which  they  opened  to  his  affectionate  solicitude  for  his  family. 
"  I  knew  your  heart  well  enough,"  he  wrote  to  his  brother  Fred- 
erick, "  to  feel  that  there  is  a  large  portion  of  it  ever  warmly  de- 
voted to  my  interests,  and  I  should  be  doing  injustice  to  mine  if  I 
did  not  tell  you  that  I  have  not  one  ambitious  view  or  hope  from 
which  you  stand  separated.  I  feel  that  Fortune,  with  her  usual 
caprice,  has  in  dealing  with  us  turned  her  face  to  the  least  deserving, 
but  we  will  correct  her  mistake  for  once,  and  I  must  insist  that  you 
from  henceforth  consider  yourself  as  by  right  my  associate  in  all  her 
favors."  — (Sept.  21,1828.) 

The  important  thing  is  that  all  this  is  no  mere  coinage  of  fair 
words,  but  the  expression  of  a  deep  and  genuine  intention,  which 
was  amply  and  most*  diligently  fulfilled  to  the  very  last  hour  of 
Cobden's  life. 


CHAPTEE    11. 

COMMERCIAL  AND  MENTAL  PROGRESS. 

Cobden  had  not  been  many  months  in  his  new  partnership  before 
his  energetic  mind  teemed  with  fresh  projects.  The  arrangement 
with  the  Forts  had  turned  out  excellently.  The  Lancashire 
printers,  as  we  have  seen,  sent  up  their  goods  to  the  warehouse  of 
Cobden  and  his  two  partners  in  Watling  Street,  in  London.  On  * 
the  commission  on  the  sale  of  these  goods  the  little  firm  lived  and 
throve  from  the  spring  of  1829  to  1831.  In  1831  they  determined 
to  enlarge  their  borders,  and  to  print  their  own  goods.  The  con- 
ditions of  the  trade  had  just  undergone  a  remarkable  change.  It 
had  hitherto  been  burdened  by  a  heavy  duty,  which  ranged  from 
as  much  as  fifty  or  sixty  to  even  one  hundred  per  cent  of  the 
value  of  the  goods.     In  addition  to  excess  in  amount,  there  was 


^T.  24-28.]  COMMERCIAL  AND   MENTAL  PROGRESS.  13 

a  vexatious  eccentricity  of  incidence ;  for  woollens  and  silks  were 
exempt,  while  calicoes  were  loaded  with  a  duty  that,  as  has  been 
said,  sometimes  actually  made  up  one  half  of  the  total  cost  of  the 
cloth  to  the  purchasers.  As  is  invariably  the  case  in  fiscal  history, 
excessive  and  ill-adjusted  imposts  led  to  systematic  fraud.  Amid 
these  forces  of  disorder,  it  is  no  wonder  that  from  1825  to  1830 
the  trade  was  stationary.  The  Lancashire  calico-printers  kept  up 
a  steady  agitation,  and  at  one  time  it  was  proposed  to  raise  four 
thousand  pounds  for  the  purchase  of  a  seat  in  Parliament  for  a 
representative  of  their  grievances.  The  agitation  was  successful. 
The  duty  was  taken  off  in  the  spring  of  1831,  and  between  1831 
and  1841  the  trade  doubled  itself. 

This  great  change  fully  warranted  the  new  enterprise  of  Cobden 
and  his  partners.  They  took  over  from  the  Forts  an  old  calico- 
printing  factory  at  Sabden,  —  a  remote  village  on  the  banks  of  a 
tributary  of  the  Calder,  near  the  ruined  gateways  and  chapel  of 
the  Cistercian  abbey  at  Whalley  in  Lancashire,  and  a  few  miles 
from  where  are  now  the  fine  mills  and  flourishing  streets  of  Black- 
burn. The  higher  part  of  the  Sabden  valley  runs  up  into  the 
famous  haunted  Forest  of  Pendle  ;  and  notwithstanding  the  tall 
chimneys  that  may  be  seen  dimly  in  the  distance  of  the  plain,  the 
visitor  to  this  sequestered  spot  may  well  feel  as  if  the  old  world  of 
white  monks  and  forest  witches  still  lingered  on  the  bleak  liill- 
sides.  Cobden  was  all  with  the  new  world.  His  imagination  had 
evidently  been  struck  by  the  busy  life  of  the  coUnty  with  which 
his  name  was  destined  to  be  so  closely  bound  up.  Manchester,  he 
writes  with  enthusiasm,  is  the  place  for  all  men  of  bargain  and 
business.  His  pen  acquires  a  curiously  exulting  animation,  as  he 
describes  the  bustle  of  its  streets,  the  quaintness  of  its  dialect,  the 
abundance  of  its  capital,  and  the  sturdy  veterans  with  a  hundred 
thousand  pounds  in  each  pocket,  who  might  be  seen  in  the  evening 
smoking  clay  pipes  and  calling  for  brandy  and  water  in  the  bar- 
parlors  of  homely  taverns.  He  declared  his  conviction,  from  what 
he  had  seen,  that  if  he  were  stripped  naked  and  turned  into  Lan- 
cashire with  only  his  experience  for  a  capital,  he  would  still  make  / 
a  large  fortune.  He  would  not  give  anybody  sixpence  to  guarantee  [ 
him  wealth,  if  he  only  lived.^  And  so  forth,  in  a  vein  of  self-confi-  U 
dence  which  he  himself  well  described  as  Napoleonic.  "  I  am  ever 
solicitous,"  he  wrote  to  his  brother  (Jan.  30, 1832), "  for  your  future 
prosperity,  and  I  wish  that  I  could  convince  you,  as  I  feel  con- 
vinced, that  it  all  depends  upon  your  bringing  out  with  spirit  the 
talents  you  possess.  I  wish  that  I  could  impart  to  you  a  little  of 
that  BoJiapartian  feeling  with  which  I  am  imbued,  —  a  feeling  that 
spurs  me  on  with  the  conviction  that  all  the  obstacles  to  fortune 

1  Letters  to  Frederick  CoUen,  Aug.  11,  1831,  Jan.  6,  1832,  &c. 


14  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1832. 

with  which  I  am  impeded  will  (nay,  shall)  yield  if  assailed  with 
energy.  All  is  lost  to  you,  if  you  succumb  to  those  desponding 
views  which  you  mentioned  when  we  last  spoke.  Dame  Fortune, 
like  other  fair  ones,  loves  a  brisk  and  confident  wooer.  I  want 
to  see  you  able  to  pitch  your  voice  in  a  higher  key,  especially 
wiien  you  are  espousnig  your  own  interests,  and  above  all,  never  to 
see  you  yield  or  become  passive  and  indifferent  when  your  cause  is 
just,  and  only  wants  to  be  spiritedly  supported  to  be  sure  of  a 
triumph.  But  all  this  must  proceed  from  within,  and  can  be  only 
the  fruits  of  a  larger  growth  of  spirit,  to  the  cultivation  of  which 
without  further  lecture  I  most  earnestly  commend  you." 

A  more  curious  picture  still  is  to  be  found  in  another  letter,  also 
to  his  brother,  written  a  few  months  later  (April  12,  1832).  He 
describes  his  commercial  plans  as  full  of  solidity,  "  sure  for  the 
present,  and,  what  is  still  better,  opening  a  vista  to  my  view  of 
ambitious  hopes  and  schemes  almost  boundless.  Sometimes  I  con- 
fess I  allow  this  sort  of  feeling  to  gain  a  painful  and  harassing 
ascendency  over  me.  It  disquiets  me  in  the  night  as  well  as  day. 
It  gnaws  my  very  entrails  (a  positive  truth),  and  yet  if  I  ask, 
What  is  all  this  yearning  after  ?  I  can  scarcely  give  myself  a 
satisfying  answer.  Surely  not  for  money;  I  feel  a  disregard  for  it, 
and  even  a  slovenly  inattention  to  its  possession,  that  is  quite 
dangerous.  I  have  scarcely  ever,  as  usual,  a  sovereign  in  my 
pocket,  and  have  been  twice  to  Whalley,  to  find  myself  without 
the  means  of  paying  my  expenses.  I  do  not  think  that  the  pos- 
session of  millions  would  greatly  alter  my  habits  of  expense." 

As  we  might  have  expected  in  so  buoyant  and  overflowing  a 
temperament,  moments  of  reaction  were  not  absent,  though  the 
shadow  was  probably  as  swiftly  transient  with  him  as  with  any 
man  that  ever  lived.  In  one  of  the  letters  of  this  period  he 
writes  to  his  brother :  —  "I  know  I  must  rise  rapidly  if  not  too 
heavily  weighted.  Another  doleful  letter  from  poor  M.  [one  of 
his  sisters]  came  yesterday.  Oh,  this  is  the  only  portion  of  the 
trials  of  my  life  that  I  could  not  go  through  again  —  the  ordeal 
would  send  me  to  Bedlam  !  Well,  I  drown  the  past  in  still  hop- 
ing for  the  future,  but  God  knows  whether  futurity  will  be  as 
great  a  cheat  as  ever.  I  sometimes  think  it  will.  I  tell  you 
candidly,  I  am  sometimes  out  of  spirits,  and  have  need  of  co-opera- 
tion, or  Heaven  knows  yet  what  will  become  of  my  fine  castles 
in  the  air.     So  you  must  bring  spirits  —  spirits  —  spirits" 

Few  men  indeed  have  been  more  heavily  weighted  at  the  start 
than  Cobden  was.  His  family  was  still  dogged  and  tracked  from 
place  to  place  by  the  evil  genius  of  slipshod  fortune.  In  1829 
Frederick  Cobden  began  'the  business  of  a  timber  merchant  at 
Barnet,  but  unhappily  the  undertaking  was  as  little  successful 
as  other  things  to  which  he  ever  put  his  hand.     The  little  busi- 


iEx.  28.]  COMMERCIAL  AND   MENTAL   PROGRESS.  y  15 

ness  at  Farnham  had  failed,  and  had  been  abandoned.  William 
Cobden  went  to  live  with  his  son  at  Barnet,  and  amused  a  favor- 
ite passion  by  watching  the  hundred  and  twenty  coaches  which 
each  day  whirled  up  and  down  the  great  north  road.  Nothing- 
prospered.  Death  carried  off  a  son  and  a  daughter  in  the  same 
year  (1830).  Frederick  lost  health,  and  he  lost  his  brother's 
money,  and  spirits  followed.  He  and  his  father  make  a  strong 
instance  of  the  deep  saying  of  Shakespeare's  Enobarbus,  how/ 
men's  judgments  are  a  parcel  of  their  fortunes,  and  things  out-' 
ward  draw  the  inward  quality  after  them  to  suffer  all  alike.^ 
Stubborn  and  besetting  failure  generally  warps  good  sense,  and 
this  is  the  hard  warrant  for  the  man  of  the  world's  afixiety  to 
steer  clear  of  unlucky  people. 

Richard  Cobden,  however,  had  energy  enough  and  to  spare  for 
the  rest  of  his  family.  He  pressed  his  brother  to  join  him  at 
Manchester,  where  he  had  bought  a  house  in  what  was  then  the 
genteel  private  quarter  of  Mosley  Street.^  Gillett  and  Sheriff 
carried  on  the  business  at  the  London  warehouse,  and  Mr.  George 
Foster,  who  had  been  manager  under  the  Forts,  was  now  in  charge 
as  a  partner  at  the  works  at  Sabden. 

It  is  at  Sabden  that  we  first  hear  of  Cobden's  interest  in  the 
affairs  of  others  than  himself  and  his  kinsfolk.  There,  in  a  little 
stone  school-house,  we  see  the  earliest  monument  of  his  eager 
and  beneficent  public  spirit,  which  was  destined  to  shed  such 
prosperity  over  his  country,  and  to  contribute  so  helpfully  to  the 
civilization  of  the  globe.  In  no  part  of  England  have  the  last 
forty  years  wrought  so  astonishing  a  change  as  among  the  once 
lonely  valleys  and  wild  moors  of  east  Lancashire.  At  Sabden,  in 
1832,  though  the  print-works  alone  maintained  some  six  hundred 
wage-receivers,  there  was  no  school,  and  there  was  no  church.  A 
diminutive  Baptist  chapel,  irregularly  served,  was  the  only  agency 
for  bringing,  so  far  as  it  did  bring,  the  great  religious  tradition 
of  the  western  world  within  reach  of  this  isolated  flock.  The 
workers  practised  a  singular  independence  towards  their  em- 
ployers.    They  took  it  as  matter  of  course  that  they  were  free, 

^  To  those  who  care  for  a  measure  of  the  immense  growth  in  the  great  capital  of 
the  cotton  trade,  the  following  extract  will  have  some  interest  :  — 

"  I  have  given  such  a  start  to  Mosley  Street,  that  all  the  world  will  he  at  my  heels 
soon.  My  next  door  neighbor,  Brooks,  of  the  firm  of  Cunliffe  and  Brooks,  hank- 
ers, has  sold  his  house  to  be  converted  into  a  warehouse.  The  owner  of  the  house  on 
the  other  side  has  given  his  tenant  notice  for  the  same  purpose.  The  house  imme- 
diately opposite  to  me  has  been  announced  for  sale,  and  my  architect  is  commissioned 
by  George  Hole,  the, calico-printer,  to  bid  6000  guineas  for  it  ;  but  they  want  8000 
for  what  they  paid  4500  only  five  years  ago.  The  architect  assures  me,  if  I  were  to  put 
up  my  ih^iise  to-morrow,  I  "might  have  6000  guineas  for  it.  So  as  I  gave  but  3000, 
and  all  the  world  is  talking  of  the  bargain  here,  and  there  being  but  one  opinion 
or  criterion  of  a  man's  ability — '-thR  making  of  money — I  am  already  thought  a 
clever  fellow. "  — Ze^^r  to  Frederick  Cobden,  Sept.  1832. 


16  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1832-36. 

whenever  it  was  their  good  pleasure,  and  without  leave  asked  or 
given,  to  quit  their  work  for  a  whole  week  at  once,  and  to  set  out 
on  a  drinking  expedition  to  some  neighboring  town,  whence  they 
would  liave  been  ashamed  to  return  until  their  pockets  were 
drained  to  the  last  penny.  Yet  if  there  was  little  religion,  there 
was  great  political  spirit.  There  is  a  legend  still  surviving,  how 
Mr.  Foster,  a  Liberal  of  the  finest  and  most  enlightened  type, 
with  a  clear  head  and  a  strong  intelligence,  and  the  good  old- 
fashioned  faith  in  freedom,  justice,  and  progress,  led  the  Sabden 
contingent  of  zealous  voters  to  Clitheroe  for  the  first  election  after 
the  Keform  Act,  and  how,  like  a  careful  patriarch,  he  led  them 
quickly  back  again  after  their  civil  duty  was  done ;  leaving  the 
taverns  of  Clitheroe  behind,  and  refresliing  themselves  at  the 
springs  on  the  hill-side.  The  politics  of  Sabden  were  not  always 
so  judicious,  for  it  appears  that  no  baptismal  name  for  the  chil- 
dren born  in  the  valley  between  1830  and  1840  was  so  univer- 
sally popular  as  that  of  Feargus  O'Connor. 

It  was  in  this  far-ofp  corner  of  the  world  that  Cobden  began 
his  career  as  an  agitator,  and  for  a  cause  in  which  all  England 
has  long  since  come  round  to  his  mind.  His  earliest  speeches 
were  made  at  Clitheroe  on  behalf  of  the  education  of  the  young, 
and  one  of  his  earliest  letters  on  what  may  fairly  be  called  a  pub- 
lic question  is  a  note  making  arrangements  for  the  exhibition  at 
Sabden  of  twenty  children  from  an  infant  school  at  Manchester, 
by  way  of  an  example  and  incentive  to  more  backward  regions. 
It  was  characteristic  of  him,  that  he  threw  as  much  eager  enthu- 
siasm into  the  direction  of  this  exhibition  of  school-children,  as 
ever  he  did  afterwards  into  great  affairs  of  state.  His  partner 
was  a  worthy  colleague. 

"  You  have  ground,"  Cobden  wrote  to  him,  "  for  very  great  and 
just  self-gratulation  in  the  movement  which  you  announce  to 
have  begun  in  behalf  of  infant  schools  at  Sabden.  There  is 
never  the  possibility  of  knowing  the  extent  to  which  a  philan- 
thropic action  may  operate  usefully  —  because  the  good  works 
again  multiply  in  like  manner,  and  may  continue  thus  to  pro- 
duce valuable  fruits  long  after  you  cease  to  tend  the  growth  of 
them.  I  have  always  been  of  opinion  that  good  examples  are 
more  influential  than  bad  ones,  and  I  like  to  take  this  view  of  the 
case,  because  it  strengthens  my  good  hopes  for  general  and  per- 
manent ameliorations.  Look  how  perishable  is  the  practice,  and 
therefore  how  little  is  to  be  dreaded  the  eternity  of  evil;  whilst 
goodness  or  virtue  by  the  very  force  of  example,  and  by  its  own 
indestructible  nature,  must  go  on  increasing  and  multiplying  for- 
ever !  I  really  think  you  may  achieve  the  vast  honor  of  making 
Sabden  a  light  to  lighten  the  surrounding  country,  and  carrying 
civilization  into  towns  that  ought  to  have  shed  rays  of  knowledge 


^T.  28-32.]  COMMERCIAL  AND  MENTAL  PROGRESS.  17 

■upon  your  village  :  when  you  have  furnished  a  volunteer  corps  of 
your  infant  troops  to  teach  the  tactics  of  the  system  to  the  people 
of  Clitheroe,  you  should  make  an  offer  of  a  similar  service  gratis 
to  the  good  people  of  Padihan.  Let  it  be  done  in  a  formal  and 
open  manner  to  the  leading  people  of  the  place  and  neighborhood, 
who  will  thus  be  openly  called  upon  to  exert  themselves,  and  be 
at  the  same  time  instructed  how  to  go  about  the  business.  There 
are  many  well-meaning  people  in  the  ivoiicl  who  are  not  so  useful  as 
th^y  might  he,  from  not  knowing  how  to  go  to  work" ^ 

His  perception  of  the  truth  of  the  last  sentence,  coupled  as  it 
wa?  with  untiring  energy  in  coping  with  it,  and  showing  people 
how  they  could  go  to  work  best,  was  the  secret  of  one  of  the  most 
important  sides  of  Cobden's  public  service.  It  was  this  which, 
along  with  his  acute  political  intelligence,  made  him  so  singularly 
effective.  "  You  tell  me,"  he  wrote  on  one  occasion  to  his  part- 
ner, "to  take  time  and  be  comfortable,  but  I  fear  quiet  will  not 
be  my  lot  this  trip.  I  sometimes  dream  of  quiet,  but  then  I  rec- 
ollect Byron's  line,  — 

Quiet  to  g^uick  bosoms  is  a  helj, 

and  I  am  afraid  he  is  nearly  right  in  my  case."  ^  Yet  this  dis- 
quiet never  in  him  degenerated  into  the  sterile  bustle  which  so 
many  restless  spirits  have  mistaken  for  practical  energy.  Behind 
all  his  .sanguine  enthusiasm  as  to  public  ends,  lay  the  wisest  pa- 
tience as  to  means. 

What  surprises  one  in  reading  the  letters  which  Cobden  wrote 
between  1833  and  1836,  is  the  quickness  with  which  his  charac- 
ter widened  and  ripened.  We  pass  at  a  single  step  from  the  nat- 
ural and  wholesome  egotism  of  the  young  man  who  has  his  bread 
to  win,  to  the  wide  interests  and  generous  public  spirit  of  the 
good  citizen.  His  first  motion  was  towards  his  own  intellectual 
improvement.  Even  at  a  moment  when  he  might  readily  have 
been  excused  for  thinking  only  of  money  and  muslins,  he  felt  and 
obeyed  the  necessity  for  knowledge:  but  of  knowledge  as  an 
instrument,  not  as  a  luxury.  When  he  was  immersed  in  the  first 
pressing  anxieties  of  his  new  business  at  Manchester,  he  wrote  to 
his  brother  in  London  (September,  1832) :  — 

"  Might  we  not  in  the  winter  instruct  ourselves  a  little  in 
Mathematiqs  ?  If  you  will  call  at  Longmans  and  look  over  their 
catalogue,  I  dare  say  you  might  find  some  popular  elementary 
publication  that  would  assist  us.  I  have  a  great  disposition,  too, 
to  know  a  little  Latin,  and  six  months  would  suffice  if  I  had  a 
few  books.  Can  you  trust  your  perseverance  to  stick  to  them  ? 
I  think  I  can.     Let  me  hear  from  you.     I  wished  Henry  to  take 

1  To  Mr.  George,  Foster,  April  14,  1836. 
a  To  Mr.  Foster,  May  14,  1836. 
2 


18  LIFE   OP   COBDEN.  [1833-36. 

lessons  in  Spanish. this  winter;  it  is  most  useful  as  a  commercial 
language ;  the  two  Americas  will  be  our  best  and  largest  cu^om- 
ers  in  spite  of  tariffs." 

He  had  early  in  life  felt  the  impulse  of  coniposition.  His 
first  writing  was  a  play,  entitled  The  Phrenologist,  and  Cobden 
offered  it  to  the  manager  of  Co  vent  Garden  Theatre.     He  rejected 

it "  luckily  for  me,"  Cobden  added,  "  for  if  he  had  accepted  it, 

I  should  probably  have  been  a  vagabond  all  the  rest  of  my  life." 
Another  comedy  still  survives  in  manuscript ;  it  is  entirely  with- 
out quality,  and  if  the  writer  ever  looked  at  it  in  riper  years,  he 
probably  had  no  difficulty  in  understanding  why  the  manager 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  His  earliest  political  work 
consisted  of  letters  addressed  anonymously  to  one  of  the  Man- 
chester newspapers  (1835)  on  the  subject  of  the  incorporation  of 
the  borough.  But  it  was  the  pamphlet  of  1835,  England,  Ire- 
land, and  America,  which  first  showed  the  writer's  power.  Of 
the  political  teaching  of  this  performance  we  shall  say  something 
in  another  chapter.  Here  we  mention  it  as  illustrating  the  direc- 
tion in  which  Cobden's  thoughts  were  busy,  and  the  kind  of 
nourishment  with  which  he  was  strengthening  his  understanding 
during  the  years  previous  to  his  final  launch  forth  upon  the  sea  of 
great  affairs. 

This  pamphlet  and  that  which  followed  it  in  the  next  year, 
show  by  their  references  and  illustrations  that  the  writer,  after 
his  settlement  in  Manchester  in  the  autumn  of  1832,  had  made 
himself  acquainted  with  the  greatness  of  Cervantes,  the  geniality 
of  Le  Sage,  the  sweetness  of  Spenser,  the  splendid  majesty  of 
Burke,  no  less  than  with  the  general  course  of  European  history 
in  the  past,  and  the  wide  forces  that  were  then  actually  at  work 
in  the  present.     One  who  had  intimate  relations  with  Cobden  in 
these  earlier  years  of  his  career,  described  him  to  me  as  always 
writing  and  speaking   "  to  the  top  of  his  Jcnowledge."     The  real 
meaning  of  this,  I  believe,  was  that  Cobden  had  a  peculiar  gift 
for  turning  everything  that  he  read  to  useful  purpose  in  strength- 
ening^ or  adorning  his  arguments.     He  only  read  or  listened  where 
he  expected  to  find  help,  and  his  quickness  in  assimilating  was 
due  to  a  combination  of  strong  concentration  of  interest  on  his 
own  subject,  with  keen  dexterity  in 'turning  light  upon  it  from 
other  subjects.      Or,  in  saying  that   Cobden  always. spoke  and 
wrote  to  the  top  of  his  knowledge,  our  informant  was  perhaps 
expressing  what  any  one  may  well  feel  in  reading  his  pamphlets 
and  speeches,  namely,  that  he  had  a  mind  so  intensely  ahve,  so 
penetrative,  so  real,  as  to  be  able  by  means  of  moderate  knowl- 
edge rapidly  acquired,  to  get  nearer  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  than 
others  who  had  labored  after  a  far  more  extensive  preparation. 
Very  early  in  life  Cobden  perceived,  and  he  never  ceased  to 


JEt.  29-32.]  COMMERCIAL  AND  MENTAL  PROGRESS.  19 

perceive,  that  for  his  purposes  no  preparation  could  be  so  effect- 1 
ive  as  that  of  travel.  He  first  went  abroad  in  the  summer  of 
1833  (July),  when  he  visited  Paris  in  search  of  designs  for  his 
business.  He  did  not  on  this  occasion  stay  long  enough  to  derive 
any  ideas  about  France  that  are  worth  recording  now.  He  hardly 
got  beyond  the  common  English  impression  that  the  French  are  a 
nation  of  grown-up  children,  though  he  described  the  habit  of 
Parisian  life  in  a  happy  phrase,  as  " pleasicre  without  pomp!'  ^ 

In  the  following  year  he  again  went  to  France,  and  continued 
his  journey  to  Switzerland.  The  forests  and  mountains  inspired 
him  with  the  admiration  and  awe  that  no  modern  can  avoid. 
Once  in  after-years,  a  friend  who  was  about  to  visit  the  United 
States  asked  him  whether  it  would  be  worth  while  to  go  far  out 
of  his  way  for  the  sake  of  seeing  the  Falls  of  Niagara.  "  Yes, 
most  assuredly,"  was  Cobden's  reply.  "  Nature  has  the  sublimity 
of  rest,  and  the  sublimity  of  motion.  The  sublimity  of  rest  is  in 
the  great  snow  mountains  ;  the  sublimity  of  motion  is  in  Niagara." 

Although  he  had  to  its  fullest  extent  this  sentiment  for  the  im- 
posing glories  of  the  inanimate  universe,  yet  it  is  characteristic 
of  his  right  sense  of  the  true  measure  of  things,  that,  after  speak- 
ing of  Swiss  scenery,  he  remarks  to  his  brother,  as  "  better  still!' 
that  he  has  made  acquaintance  with  people  who  could  tell  him 
about  the  life  and  institutions  of  the  land.  "  The  people  of  this 
country  are  I  believe  the  best  governed  and  therefore  the  most 
prosperous  and  happy  in  the  world.  It  is  the  only  Grovernment 
which  has  not  one  doitanier  in  its  pay,  and  yet,  thanks  to  free 
trade,  there  is  scarcely  any  branch  of  manufacturing  industry 
which  does  not  in  one  part  or  other  of  the  country  find  a  healthy 
occupation.  The  farmers  are  substantial.  Here  is  a  far  more 
elevated  character  of  husbandry  life  than  I  expected  to  see.  Enor- 
mous farm-houses  and  barns  ;  plenty»of  out-houses  of  every  kind  ; 
and  the  horses  and  cows  are  superior  to  those  of  the  English 
farmers.  The  sheep  and  pigs  are  very,  very  bad.  They  have  not 
adopted  the  Chinese  breed  of  the  latter,  and  the  former  they  do 
not  pay  much  attention  to.  I  did  not  see  a  field  of  turnips  in  all 
the  country.     Cows  are  the  staple  of  the  farming  trade."  ^ 

It  was  to  the  United  States,  rather  even  than  to  Switzerland, 
that  Cobden's  social  faith  and  enthusiasm  turned;  and  after  his* 
pamphlet  was  published  in  the  spring  of  1835,  he  resolved  to  see 
with  his  own  eyes  the  great  land  of  uncounted  promise.  Busi- 
ness was  prosperous,  and  though  his  partners  thought  in  their 
hearts  that  he  might  do  better  by  attending  to  affairs  at  home, 
they  allowed  some  freedom  to  the  enterprising  genius  of  their 
ally,  and  made  no  objection  to  his  absence. 

1  To  F.  Cohden.  July  27,  1833. 

2  To  F.  Cohden.     From  Geneva,  June  6,  1834. 


20  •        LIFE   or   COBDEN.  [1835. 

Meanwhile  his  father  had  died  (June  15,  1833).  When  Fred- 
erick Cobden  had  joined  his  brother  in  Manchester,  the  old  man 
had  o-one  to  live  with  his  daughters  in  London.  But  he  could 
not  b'ear  the  process  of  transplanting.  He  pined  for  his  old  hie 
in  the  beloved  country,  and  his  health  failed  rapidly.  They  re- 
moved him  shortly  before  he  died  to  Droxford,  but  it  was  too  late, 
and  he  did  not  long  survive  the  change.  The  last  few  months  of 
a  life  that  would  have  been  very  dreary  but  for  the  undying  glow 
of  family  affection,  were  gilded  by  the  reflection  of  his  son's  pros- 

It  is  the  bitterest  element  in  the  vast  irony  of  human  life  that 
the  time-worn  eyes  to  which  a  son's  success  would  have  brought 
the  purest  gladness,  are  so  often  closed  forever  before  success  has 
come. 


CHAPTER  III. 

TRAVELS  IN  WEST  AND   EAST. 

On  May  I,  1835,  Cobden  left  Manchester,  took  his  passage  in  the 
Britannia,  and  after  a  boisterous  and  tiresome  voyage  of  more 
than  five  weeks  in  the  face  of  strong  west  winds,  arrived  m  the 
port  of  New  York  on  June  7.  His  brother,  Henry,  who  had  gone 
to  America  some  time  previously,  met  him  on  the  wharf  In  his 
short  diary  of  the  tour,  Cobden  almost  begins  the  record  by  ex- 
claiming, "  What  beauty  will  this  inner  bay  of  New  York  present 
centuries  hence,  when  wealth  and  commerce  shall  have  done  their 
utmost  to  embellish  the  scetie  ! "  And  writing  to  his  brother  he 
expresses  his  joy  at  finding  himself  in  a  country,  "on  the  soil  ot 
which  I  fondly  hope  will  be  realized  some  of  those  dreams  of 
human  exaltation,  if  not  of  perfection,  with  which  I  love  to  con- 
sole myself"  ^  .  n  .^      l.^  -  i. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  the  itinerary  of  the  thirty-seven 
days  which  Cobden  now  passed  in  the  United  States.  He  visited 
the  chief  cities  of  the  Eastern  shore,  but  found  his  way  no  farther 
west  than  Buffalo  and  Pittsburg.  Cobden  was  all  his  life  long 
remarkable  for  possessing  the  traveller's  most  pjdceless  resource, 
patience  and  good-humor  under  discomfort.  cHe  was  a  match 
for  the  Americans  themselves,  whose  powers  of  endurance  under 
the  small  tribulations  of  railways  and  hotels  excite  the  envy  of^ 
Europeans.     "  Poland  [in  Ohio],"   Cobden  notes  in  his  journal,^ 

1  To  F.  C,  June  7,  1835. 


iET.3L]  TRAVELS   IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  21 

"where  we  changed  coaches,  is  a  pretty  thriving  little  town, 
chieHy  of  wood,  with  two  or  three  brick  houses,  quite  in  the  Eng- 
lish style.  We  proceeded  to  Young's  Town,  six  miles,  and  there 
again  changed  coaches,  but  had  to  wait  three  hours  of  the  night 
until  the  branch  stage  arrived,  and  I  lost  my  temper  for  the  first 
time  in  America,  in  consequence." 

He  remarked  that  politics  were  rarely  discussed  in  public  con- 
veyances. "  Here  [in  Ohio]  I  found,  as  in  every  other  company, 
tlie  slavery  blot  viewed  as  an  indelible  stain  upon,  and  a  curse  to, 
the  country.  An  intelligent  old  gentleman  said  he  would  prefer 
the  debt  of  Great  Britain  to  the  colored  population  of  the  United 
States.  All  agreed  in  the  hopelessness  of  any  remedy  that  had 
been  proposed." 

Cobden's  curiosity  and  observation  were  as  alert  and  as  varied 
as  usual,  from  wages,  hours  of  labor,  quality  of  land,  down  to  swift 
trotters,  and  a  fellow-traveller  "  who  wore  gold  spectacles,  talked 
of  '  taste,'  and  questioned  me  about  Bulwer,  Lady  Blessington, 
and  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  but  chewed  tobacco  and  spat  inces- 
santly, clearing  the  lady,  out  of  the  window."  He  felt  the  emo- 
tions of  Moses  on  Pisgah,  as  he  looked  down  from  one  of  the 
northern  spurs  of  the  AUeghanies  :  — 

"Passing  over  the  last  summit  of  the  AUeghanies,  called  Laurel 
Hill,  we  looked  down  upon  a  plain  country,  the  beginning  of  that 
vast  extent  of  territory  known  as  the  Great  Mississippi  Valley, 
which  extends  almost  without  variation  of  surface  to  the  base  of 
the  Eocky  Mountains,  and  increases  in  fertility  and  beauty  the 
further  it  extends  westward.  Here  will  one  day  be  the  head- 
quarters of  agricultural  and  manufacturing  industry ;  here  will 
one  day  centre  the  civilization,  the  wealth,  the  power  of  the  en- 
tire world.  The  country  is  well  cleared,  it  has  been  occupied  by 
Europeans  only  eighty  years,  and  it  is  the  best  soil  I  have  seen 
on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Any  number  of  able-bodied  laborers 
may,  the  moment  they  tread  the  grass  west  of  the  AUeghanies, 
have  employment  at  two  shillings  a  day  and  be  'found.'  We  ar- 
rived at  Brownsville  at  four  o'clock,  the  only  place  I  have  yet  seen 
that  uses  coals  for  fuel.  We  are  now  in  the  State  of  Pennsyl- 
vania.    Thank  God  I  am  no  longer  in  the  country  of  slaves."  ^ 

On  coaches  and  steamboats  he  was  constantly  struck,  as  all 
travellers  in  America  have  been,  by  the  vehement  and  sometimes 
unreasonable  national  self-esteem  of  the  people.  At  the  theatre 
at  Pittsburg  he  remarked  the  enthusiasm  with  which  any  republi- 
can sentiment  was  caught  up,  and  he  records  the  rapturous  cheers 
that  greeted  the  magniloquent  speech  of  one  of  the  characters,  — 
"  No  crowned  head  in  Christendom  can  boast  that  he  ever  com- 

1  To  F.  Cobdeji,  June  15,  1835. 


^ 


22  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1835. 

manded  for  one  hour  the  services  of  this  right  arm."  The  Ameri- 
cans were  at  that  time  suffering  one  of  their  too  common  fits  of 
smart  and  irritation  under  English  criticism.  They  never  saw 
an  Englishman  without  breaking  out  against  Mrs.  Trollope,  Cap- 
tain Basil  Hall,  and,  above  all,  Fanny  Kemble.  "  Nothing  but 
praise  unqualified  and  unadulterated  will  satisfy  people  of  such  a 
disposition.  We  passed  by  the  scene  of  Braddock's  defeat  by  the 
French  and  Indians  on  Turtle  Creek.  Our  American  friends 
talked  of  New  Orleans."  ^  Their  self-glorification  sometimes 
roused  Cobden  to  protest,  though  he  thought  he  saw  signs  that 
it  was  likely  to  diminish,  as  has  indeed  been  the  case  :  — 

"  It  strikes  me  that  the  organ  of  self-esteem  is  destined  to  be 
,   the  national  feature  in  the  craniums  of  this  people.     They  are 
1   the  most  insatiable  gourmands  of  flattery  and  praise  that  ever 
I    existed.     I  mean  praise  of  their  country,  its   institutions,  great 
i    men,   etcetera.     I   was,  for  instance,  riding   out  with   a   Judge 
I     Boardman   and   a   lady,  when   the   Judge,   speaking   of  Daniel 
f     Webster,  said,  quite  coolly,  and  without  a  smile,  for  I  looked  for 
'     one  very  closely,  thinking  he  joked,  '  I  do  not  know  if  the  great 
Lord  Chatham  might  not  have  been  his  equal,  but  certainly  no 
British  statesman  has  since  his  day  deserved  to  be   compared 
with  him.'     And  the  lady,  in  the  same  serious  tone,  asked  me 
if  I  did  not  find  the  private  carriages  handsomer  in  New  York 
than  ours-  were  in  England  !     I  have  heard  all  sorts  of  absurdities 
spoken  in  reference  to  the  glorious   incidents   of  this   nation's 
history,  and  very  often  have  been  astonished  to  find  my  attention 
called  (with  a  view  to  solicit  my  concurrence  with  the  enthusi- 
astic praises  of  the  speaker)  to  battles  and  other  events  whfch  I 
had  never  heard  of  before,  and  which  yet  the  Americans  consider 
to  be  as  familiarly  known  to  all  the  world. as  to  themselves.     I 
consider  this  failing  —  perhaps,  as  a  good  phrenologist,  I  might 
almost  term  it  a  disease  —  to  be  an  unfortunate  peculiarity.  _  There 
is  no  cure  for  it,  however.     On  the  contrary,  it  will  go  on  increas- 
i     ing  with  the  increase  of  the  wealth,  power,  and  population  of  the 
United  States,  so  long  as  they  are  United,  but  no  longer.     I  have 
generally   made   it   a  rule  to  parry  the  inquiries  and  compari- 
sons which  the  Americans  are  so  apt  to  thrust  at  an  Englishman. 
On  one  or  two  occasions,  when  the  party  has  been  numerous  and 
worth  powder  and  shot,  I  have,  however,  on  being  hard  pressed, 
and  finding  my  British  blood  up,  found  the  only  mode  of  allay- 
'      ing  their  inordinate  vanity  to  be  by  resorting  to  this  mode  of 
argument:  —  'I  admit  all   that  you   or  any  other   person   can, 
could,  may,  or   might  advance  in  praise  of  the  past   career  of 
the  people  of  America.     Nay,  more,  I  will   myself  assert  that 

1  To  F.  C,  Jime  16,  1835.     See  below,  p.  23,  n. 


^T.31.]  TRAVELS   IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  '  23* 

no  nation  ever  did,  and  in  my  opinion  none  ever  will,  achieve 
such  a  title  to  respect,  wonder,  and  gratitude  in  so  short  a  period ; 
and  further  still,  I  venture  to  allege  that  the  imagination  of 
statesmen  never  dreamed  of  a  country  that  should  in  half  a  cen- 
tury make  such  prodigious  advances  in  civilization  and  real  great- 
ness as  yours  has  done.  And  now  I  must  add,  and  I  am  sure 
you,  as  intelligent,  reasonable  men,  will  go  with  me,  that  fifty 
years  are  too  short  a  period  in  the  existence  of  nations  to  entitle 
them  to  the  palm  of  history.  No,  wait  the  ordeal  of  wars,  dis- 
tresses, and  prosperity  (the  most  dangerous  of  all),  which  centu- 
ries of  duration  are  sure  to  bring  to  your  country.  These  are  the 
test,  and  if,  many  ages  hence,  your  descendants  shall  be  able  only 
to  say  of  their  country  as  much  as  I  am  entitled  to  say  of  mine 
noiv,  that  for  seven  hundred  years  we  have  existed  as  a  nation 
constantly  advancing  in  liberty,  wealth,  and  refinement ;  holding 
out  the  lights  of  philosophy  and  true  religion  to  all  the  world ; 
presenting  mankind  with  the  greatest  of  human  institutions  in 
the  trial  by  jury ;  and  that  we  are  the  only  modern  people  that 
for  so  long  a  time  withstood  the  attacks  of  enemies  so  heroically 
that  a  foreign  foe  never  put  foot  in  our  capital  except  as  a  pris- 
oner {this  last  is  a  poser  ^);  —  if  many  centuries  hence  your  de- 
scendants will  be  entitled  to  say  something  equivalent  to  this, 
then,  and  not  till  then,  will  you  be  entitled  to  that  crown  of  fame 
which  the  historian  of  centuries  is  entitled  to  award.'  There 
is  no  way  of  conveying  a  rebuke  so  efficiently  as  upon  the  back 
of  a  compliment.  So  in  like  manner,  if  I  have  been  bored  about 
New^ Orleans,  I  have  replied,  'I  join  in  all  that  can  be  said  in 
favor  of  General  Jackson.  As  a  commander  he  has  probably 
achieved  more  than  any  other  man  by  destroying  two  thousand 
of  his  enemies  with  only  the  loss  of  twenty  men.  But  the  merit 
rests  solely  with  the  General,  for  you,  as  intelligent  men,  will 
agree  that  there  could  be  no  honor  reaped  by  troops  who  never 
were  even  seen  by  their  enemies.' "  ^ 

Of  the  great  glory  of  the  American  continent,  Cobden  thought 
as  rapturously  as  any  boaster  in  the  land.  We  have  previously 
quoted  his  expression  about  Niagara  being  the  sublimity  of  mo- 
tion, and  here  is  the  account  of  his  first  visit  to  the  incomparable 

1  The  reader  will  remember,  as  Cobden's  listeners  did,  that  Wasbington  was 
occupied  by  British  forces  in  1814. 

2  To  F.  Cobden,  from  Boston,  July  5,  1835.  Cobden's  reference  is  to  the  engage- 
ment of  the  8th  of  January,  181.5,  when  Andrew  Jackson  at  New  Orleans  repulsed 
the  British  forces  under  Sir  Edward  Pakenham.  The  Americans  mowed  the 
enemy  down  from  behind  high  works.  The  British  loss  was  700  killed,  1400 
wounded,  and  500  prisoners  ;  Jackson's  loss,  eight  killed,  and  thirteen  wounded. 
As  it  happened,  the  two  countries  were  no  longer  at  war  at  the  moment,  for  peace 
had  been  signed  at  Ghent  a  fortnight  before  (Dec.  24,  1814).  General  Pakenham, 
who  was  Wellington's  brother-in-law,  fell  while  bravely  rallying  his  columns 
under  a  murderous  fire. 


24  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1835- 

Falls.  "  From  Chippewa  village,  the  smoke  (as  it  appears  to  be) 
rising  from  the  cataract  is  visible.  There  was  not  such  a  volume 
of  mist  as  I  had  expected,  and  the  noise  was  not  great.  I 
reached  the  Pavilion  Hotel  near  the  falls  at  one  o'clock.  I 
immediately  went  to  see  this  greatest  of  natural  wonders  alone. 
I  jealously  guarded  my  eyes  from  wandering  until  I  found  my- 
self on  the  Table  Eock.  Thank  God  that  has  bestowed  on  me 
health,  time,  and  means  for  reaching  this  spot,  and  the  spirit  to 
kindle  at  the  spectacle  before  me !  The  Horse-shoe  is  the  all- 
absorbing  portion  of  the  scene  from  this  point;  the  feathery 
graceful  effect  of  the  water  as  it  tumbles  in  broken  and  irregu- 
lar channels  over  the  edge  of  the  rock  has  not  been  properly 
described.  Nor  has  the  effect  of  the  rapids  above  the  shoot,  seen 
from  this  point,  as  they  come  surging,  lashing,  and  hissing  in 
apparent  agony  at  the  terrific  destiny  before  them.  This  rapid 
above  the  falls  might  be  called  a  rush  of  the  waters  preparatory 
to  their  taking  their  awful  leap.  The  water  is  thrown  over  an 
irregular  ledge,  but  in  falling  it  completely  hides  the  face  of  the 
perpendicular  rock  down  which  it  falls.  Instead  of  an  even 
sheet  of  glassy  water,  it  falls  in  light  and  graceful  festoons  of 
foaming,  nay  almost  vapory  fluid,  possessing  just  enough  con- 
sistency to  descend  in  various-sized  and  hardly  distinguishable 
streams,  whilst  here  and  there  one  of  these  foaming  volumes  en- 
counters a  projecting  rock  in  its  descent,  which  forces  it  back 
in  heavy  spray  into  the  still  descending  torrent  above ;  thus 
giving  indescribable  beauty  and  variety  to  the  scene.  In  the 
afternoon  I  crossed  the  river  below  the  falls,  and  visited  Goat's 
Island.  At  the  foot  of  the  staircase  there  is  a  view  of  the 
American  Fall  at  a  point  of  rock  near  the  bottom  of  the  cascade, 
terrific  beyond  conception,  and  totally  opposite  to  the  effect  of 
the  Horse-shoe  Fall  as  seen  from  Table  Eock.  I  aspended  the 
stairs  and  passed  over  the  bridge  to  Goat's  Island.  The  view 
from  the  platform  overhanging  the  Horse-shoe  Fall,  when  you 
look  right  down  into  the  abyss,  and  are  standing  immediately 
over  the  descending  water,  is  horrible.  I  do  not  think  people 
would  take  any  pleasure  in  being  placed  in  this  fearful  position, 
unless  others  were  looking  on,  or  unless  for  the  vain  gratification 
of  talking  about  it.  In  the  evening  I  again  looked  at  the  Horse- 
shoe Fall  from  Table  Eock  until  dark  —  oh,  for  an  English  twi- 
light !  The  effect  of  this  fall  is  improved  by  the  water  which 
flows  over  the  ledge  being  of  very  different  depths,  from  two  to 
twenty  feet,  which  of  course  causes  the  water  to  flow  more  or 
less  in  a  mass,  so  that  in  one  part  it  descends  nearly  half-way  in 
a  blue,  unbroken  sheet,  whilst  not  far  off  it  is  scattered  into  the 
whitest  foam  almost  as  soon  as  it  has  passed  the  edge  of  the 
rock.     The  water  for  several  hundred  yards  below  the  fall  is  as 


^T.31.]  TRAVELS  IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  25 

white  as  drift  snow  —  not  a  mere  white  froth,  but  wherever  it  is 
disturbed  it  shows  nothing  but  a  white  milk-like  effect  unlike 
any  water  I  ever  saw."  ^ 

*  *  '^  ^  * 

"  In  the  morning  I  went  in  a  coach  with  Messrs.  Cunningham 
and  Church,  and  Henry,  to  see  the  whirlpool  three  miles  down 
the  stream.  I  was  disappointed ;  I  don't  know  if  it  was  that  the 
all-absorbing  influence  of  the  falls  prevented  my  taking  any  in- 
terest in  other  scenes.  After  dinner,  I  descended  to  view  the 
Horse-shoe  Fall  from  behind  the  curtain  of  water ;  the  stunning 
noise  and  the  heavy  beating  of  the  water  render  this  a  severe 
adventure,  but  there  is  no  danger.  The  effect  of  the  sound  is 
that  of  the  most  terrific  thunder.  There  is  very  little  effect  for 
the  eye.  We  went  to  view  the  burning  well,  which  would 
certainly  light  a  town  with  gas.  Putting  a  tub  over  the  w^ell 
produces  a  complete  gasometer.  A  tree  was  thrown  into  the 
rapid,  but  the  effect  is  not  great,  it  dropped  immediately  it  passed 
the  ledge  more  perpendicularly  than  the  cascade,  and  so  disap- 
peared. In  the  balcony  looking  over  the  falls  there  was  a  stupid- 
looking  man,  telling  a  stupid  story,  about  a  stupid  lord.  It  as- 
sured me  that  I  w^as  amongst  my  own  countrymen  again.-  The 
negro  barber  here  is  a  runaway  black  from  Virginia. 

"  From  Table  Eock  we  saw  a  rainbow  which  formed  nearly  a 
complete  circle.  We  crossed  again  to  the  American  side  with 
Mr.  Cunningham,  and  took  a  bath,  for  there  is  not  one  on  the 
Canada  side.  The  ferryman  told  us  of  a  gentleman  who  swam 
over  three  times.  I  felt  less  disposed  than  ever  to  quit  this  spot, 
so  full  of  ever-increasing  attraction.  Were  I  an  American,  I 
would  here  strive  to  build  me  a  summer  residence.  In  the 
evening  there  were  drunken  people  about.  I  have  seen  more 
intoxicated  persons  at  this  first  Canada  town,  than  in  any  place 
in  the  States.  The  view  from  Table  Rock  was  rather  obscured 
by  the  mist.  *At  dinner  a  crowded  table  was  wholly  vacated  in 
twenty  minutes  !  Think  of  sixty  persons  at  an  English  watering- 
place  dining  and  leaving  the  table  in  twenty  minutes !  I  took 
a  last  and  reluctant  leave  of  this  greatest  of  all  nature's  works."  ^ 

Cobden  summed  up  his  impressions  in  a  long  letter  to  his 
brother  at  Manchester  :  — 

"  I  am  thus  far  on  my  way  back  again  to  New  York,  which 
city  I  expect  to  reach  on  the  8th  inst.,  after  completing  a  tour 
through  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  Washington,  Pittsburg,  Lake 
Erie  to  Buffalo,  Niagara  Fails,  Albany  {via  Auburn,  Utica,  Sche- 
nectady) and  the  Connecticut  valley  to  Boston,  and  Lowell,  etc., 
to-morrow.     On  my  return  to  New  York,  I  purpose  giving  two 

1  To  F.  C,  June  21,  1835.  2  j^^q  22,  1835.^ 


26  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1835. 

days  to  the  Hudson  river,  going  up  to  Albany  one  day,  and  re- 
turning the  next ;  after  which  I  shall  have  two  or  three  days  for 
the  purpose  of  taking  leave  of  my  good  friends  in  New  York, 
previously  to  going  on  board  the  Britannia  on  the  16th.  My 
journey  may  be  called  a  real  pleasure  trip,  for  without  an  excep- 
tion or  interruption  of  any  kind  I  have  enjoyed  every  minute  of 
the  too,  too  short  time  allowed  me  for  seeing  this  truly  magnifi- 
cent country.  No  one  has  yet  done  justice  to  the  splendid 
scenery  of  America.  Her  lakes,  rivers,  forests,  and  above  all 
her  cataracts  are  peculiarly  her  own,  and  when  I  think  of  their 
superiority  to  all  that  we  own  in  the  Old  World,  and,  still  more, 
when  I  recollect  that,  by  a  mysterious  ordinance  of  their  Creator, 
these  were  hid  from  '  learned  ken '  till  modern  times,  I  fell  into 
the  fanciful  belief  that  the  Western  continent  was  brought  forth 
at  a  second  birth,  and  intended  by  nature  as  a  more  perfect  speci- 
men of  her  handiwork.  But  how  in  the  name  of  breeding  must 
we  account  for  the  degeneracy  of  the  human  form  in  this  other- 
wise mammoth-producing  soil  ?  The  men  are  but  sorry  descend- 
ants from  the  noble  race  that  begot  their  ancestors ;  and  as  for 
the  women!  My  eyes  have  not  found  one  resting-place  that 
deserves  to  be  called  a  wholesome,  blooming,  pretty  woman  since 
I  have  been  here.  One  fourth  part  of  the  women  look  as^if  they 
had  just  recovered  from  a  fit  of  the  jaundice,  another  "quarter 
would  in  England  be  termed  in  a  state  of  decided  consumption, 
and  the  remainder  are  fitly  likened  to  our  fashionable  women 
when  haggard  and  jaded  with  the  dissipation  of  a  London  season. 
There,  have  n't  I  out-trolloped  Mrs.  Trollope,  and  overhauled  even 
Basil  Hall  ? 

"But  leaving  the  physique  for  the  morale.     My  estimate  of 
American  character  has  improved,  contrary  to  my  expectations, 
by  this  visit.     Great  as  was  my  previous  esteem  for  the  qualities 
of  this  people,  I  find  myself  in  love  with  their  intelligence,  their 
sincerity,  and  the  decorous  self-respect  that  actuates  all  classes. 
The  very  genius  of  activity  seems  to  have  found  its  fit  abode  in 
the  souls  of  this  restless  and  energetic  race.     They  have  not,  't  is 
true,  the  force  of  Englishmen  in  personal  weight  or  strength,  but 
"^hey  have  compensated  for  this  deficiency  by  quickening  the  mo- 
mentum of  their  enterprises.     All  is  in  favor  of  celerity  of  action 
i   and  the  saving  of  time.     Speed,  speed,  speed,  is  the  motto  that  is 
I    stamped  in  the  form  of  their  ships  and  steamboats,  in  the  breed 
\    of  their  horses,  and  the  light  construction  of  their  wagons  and 
\    carts :   and  in  the  ten  thousand  contrivances  that  are  met  with 
\   here,  whether  for  the  abridging  of  the  labor  of  months  or  niinutes, 
whether  a  high-pressure  engine  or  a  patent  boot-jack.    All  is  done 
in  pursuit  of  one  common  object,  the  economy  of  time.     We  like 
to  speculate  upon  the  future,  and  I  have  sometimes  tried  to  con- 


^T.3L]  TRAVELS   IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  27 

jecture  what  the  industry  and  ingenuity  and  activity  of  that 
future  people  of  New  Holland,  or  of  some  other  at  present 
unknown  continent,  will  amount  to,  which  shall  surpass  and 
supersede  the  Yankees  in  the  career  of  improvements,  as  effectu- 
ally as  these  have  done  the  natives  of  the  Old  World.  They 
must  be  a  race  that  will  be  able  to  dispense  with  food  and  sleep 
altogether,  for  the  Americans  have  certainly  discovered  the 
minimum  of  time  that  is  required  for  the  services  of  their  beds 
and  boards.  Their  mechanical  engines  must  work  miracles  'till 
panting  time  toils  after  them  in  vain.'/  In  fact  I  regard  it  as 
almost  as  improbable  for  another  community  to  rival  the  popula- 
tion of  these  States  in  prosperity,  as  for  an  individual  to  surpass 

our  indefatigable  friend  and  self-sacrificed  free-born  slave,  K , 

in  the  race  of  hard-earned  fortune.  You  know  I  predicted  when 
leaving  England  for  this  continent,  that  I  should  not  find  it 
sufficiently  to  my  taste  to  relish  a  sojourn  here  for  life.  My  feel- 
ings in  this  respect  are  quite  altered.  I  know  of  no  reasonable 
ground  for  an  aversion  to  this  country,  and  none  but  unreasonable 
minds  could  fail  to  be  as  happy  here  as  in  England,  provided 
friendly  attachments  did  not  draw  them  to  the  Old  country.  My 
own  predilection  is  rather  in  favor  of  Washington  as  a  residence. 
Baltimore  is  also,  I  should  imagine,  a  pleasant  town.  These  two 
are  now  by  means  of  the  railroad  almost  identical.  By- the- bye, 
when  running  through  those  towns  on  my  way  to  the  west,  and 
in  the  design  of  extending  my  journey  as  far  as  Montreal,  which 
I  have  since  found  to  be  impracticable,  unfortunately  I  resisted 
all  kind  invitations  to  remain  even  for  the  purpose  of  l3eing  intro- 
duced to  old  Hickory,  which  would  have  delayed  me  only  a  day. 
I  have  since  regretted  this  very  much."  ^ 

Cobden  arrived  in  England  in  the  middle  of  August,  after  an 
uneventful  voyage,  in  which  he  found  no  better  way  of  amusing 
himself  than  by  analyzing  the  character  of  his  fellow- passengers, 
and  reducing  them  to  types.  Early  in  life  his  eager  curiosity  had 
been  attracted  by  the  doctrines  of  phrenology,  and  however  crude 
the  pretensions  of  phrenology  may  now  appear,  it  will  always 
deserve  a  certain  measure  of  historic  respect  as  being  the  first 
attempt  to  popularize  the  study  of  character  by  system,  and  the 
arrangement  of  men's  faculty  and  disposition  in  classes.  To 
accept  phrenology  to-day  would  stamp  a  man  as  unscientific,  but 
to  accept  it  in  1835  was  a  good  sign  of  mental  activity.  Cobden's 
portraits  of  his  shipmates,  if  they  are  not  so  deep-reaching  as  La 
Bruyere,  serve  to  illustrate  his  habit  of  watching  the  ways  of 
men,  of  studying  the  differences  among  them,  and  of  judging 
them  with  the  kindly  neutrality  of  the  humorist  or  the  naturalist. 

1  To  F.  C,  July  5,  1835.     From  Boston. 


28  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1835-36. 

How  useful  this  habit  became  to  the  leader  of  a  political  agitation, 
y-  in  which  patient  and  versatile  handling  of  different  characters  is 
so  important  a  gift,  we  shall  soon  see. 

After  his  return -from  America,  Cobden  remained  at  home  for 
fifteen  months,  from  the  summer  of  1835  to  the  autumn  of  1836. 
He  began  by  making  up  all  arrears  of  business,  and  discussing 
new  projects  with  his  partners.  But  public  affairs  drew  him  with 
iy-  irresistible  attraction.  It  was  probably  in  this  interval  that  he 
made  his  first  pubhc  speech.  The  object  of  the  meeting,  which 
was  small  and  unimportant,  was  to  further  the  demand  of  a  cor- 
poration for  Manchester.  Cobden  was  diffident,  and  unwilling  to 
speak.  He  was  at  length  induced  to  rise,  but  his  speech  is 
described  as  a  signal  failure.  "He  was  nervous,"  says  the 
chronicler,  "  confused,  and  in  fact  practically  broke  down,  and 
the  chairman  had  to  apologize  for  him."  The  first  occasion  on 
which  his  name  appears  in  the  newspapers  is  the  announcement 
that,  he  was  chosen  to  be  on  the  committee  of  the  newly  estab- 
.  lished  Athenaeum  at  Manchester,  and  he  modestly  seconded  a 
resolution  at  the  meeting.^  The  important  piece  of  work  of  this 
date  was  the  pamphlet  on  Russia,  which  was  published  in  the 
summer  of  1836.^  The  earlier  pamphlet,  England,  Ireland,  and 
America,  had  been  published,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  in  the 
spring  of  1835,  and  within  twelve  months  had  gone  through  three 
editions,  at  what  we  should  now  consider  the  high  price  of  three 
shillings  and  sixpence ;  it  had  in  April,  1836,  reached  ^  fifth 
edition  at  sixpence.  The  newspapers  had  been  liberal  in  its 
praise,  and  its  author  had  been  described  in  the  sonorous  style  of 
the  conventional  leading  article  as  a  man  of  a  liberal  and  compre- 
hensive mind,  an  acute  and  original  thinker,  a  clear  and  interesting 
writer,  "and  in  the  best  because  not  an  exclusive  sense  of  the 
term  — a  true  patriot."  ^  Mr.  Eidgway,  the  publisher,  informed 
Cobden  that  nobody  ought  to  print  a  pamphlet  unless  he  had 
some  other  object  in  view,  besides  publication.     "  I  have  another 

1  Oct.  1,  1835. 

2  The  original  advertisement  is  as  follows:—  "On  Monday,  July  25,will  be  pub- 
lished, price  M.,  Eussia,  by  a  Manchester  Manufacturer,  author  of  England,  Ireland, 
and  America.  Contents  — 1.  Russia,  Turkey,  and  England.  2.  Poland,  Ktissia, 
and  England.  3.  The  Balance  of  Power.  4.  Protection  of  Commerce.  .  .  .  This 
is  not  a  party  pamphlet,  nor  will  Russia  be  found,  as  the  title  might  seem  to  miply, 
to  be  exclusively  the  subject  of  inquiry  in  the  following  pages." 

3  Manchester" Guardian,  May  23,  1835.  The  London  Ti7nes,  May  5,  1836,  de- 
scribes the  pamphlet  as  having  "some  sound  views  of  the  true  foreign  policy  of 
England,  and  some  just  and  forcible  reflections  on  the  causes  which  keep  us  m  the 
rear  of  improvement,"  &c. 

The  Manchester  Guardian  —  we  may  notice  as  a  point  in.that  important  matter, 
the  history  of  the  periodical  press— was  from  Jan.  1,  1830,  to  Sept.  15,  1836,  pub- 
lished once  a  week,  and  sold  for  sevenpence.  After  the  duty  on  paper  was  reduced 
(Sept.  15,  1836),  it  was  published  twice  a  week,  and  its  price  brought  down  to 
fourpence. 


iET.  31-32.]  TRAVELS   IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  29 

object,"  Cobden  adds,  "  in  distant  and  dim  perspective."  ^  We 
may  assume  that,  when  he  said  this,  he  was  thinking,  with  natural 
ambition,  of  the  pedestal  from  which  a  place  in  Parliament 
enables  a  man  to  address  his  audience.  These  two  pieces  are  im- 
portant enough  in  Cobden's  history  to  deserve  a  chapter  of  their 
own,  but  it  will  be  convenient  before  dealing  with  them  to 
complete  the  travels  which  followed  the  publication  of  the  sec- 
ond of  them.  Shortly  afterwards  the  strain  of  so  many  interests 
affected  Cobden's  health.  He  had  suffered  severely  from  an  illness 
at  the  end  of  the  previous  year,  and  the  doctors  counselled  a 
winter  abroad.  As  the  business  was  in  good  order,  and  the  main- 
spring, to  use  Cobden's  own  figure  in  the  matter,  was  not  necessary 
until  the  following  spring,  he  resolved  to  set  forth  eastward.  On 
the  22d  of  October  he  sailed  from  Plymouth.  He  arrived  in 
Falmouth  harbor,  on  his  return,  on  the  21st  of  April,  1837. 

The  ship  touched  at  Lisbon  and  Cadiz,  and  Cobden  wrote  lively 
accounts  to  his  friends  at  home  of  all  that  he  saw.  His  descrip- 
tion of  Cadiz  was  stopped  short  by  recollecting  Byron's  famous 
account,  and  the  only  subject  on  which  he  permitted  himself  to 
expatiate  repeatedly  and  at  length  was  the  beauty  of  the  ladies 
and  their  dress.  "At  Cadiz  too,"  he  writes  to  his  partner  at  Sab- 
den,  "  you  may  see  the  loveliest  female  costume  in  the  world  — 
the  Spanish  mantilla  !  All  the  head-dresses  in  Christendom  must 
yield  the  palm  to  this.  It  is,  as  you  may  see  in  the  little  clay 
figures  of  Spanish  ladies  which  are  sold  in  England,  a  veil  and 
mantle  combined,  which  falls  from  a  high  comb  at  the  back  of 
the  top  of  the  head,  down  to  the  elbow  in  front,  and  just  below 
the  shoulders  behind.  A  fan,  which  is  universally  carried,  is 
twirled  and  brandished  about,  with  an  air  quite  murderous  to  the 
hearts  of  sensitive  bachelors.  Black  silk  is  the  national  costume, 
and  thus  these  sable  beauties  are  always  seen  in  the  streets,  or  at 
the  promenade.  Judge  of  the  climate,  judge  of  the  streets,  and  of 
the  atmosphere  of  their  cities,  where  all  the  ladies  appear  in  public 
in  full  dress  !  Sorry,  however,  am  I  to  tell  you  that  the  demon  in- 
novation is  making  war  upon  the  mantilla,  in  the  shape  of  foreign 
fashions  —  French  bonnets  are  beginning  to  usurp  the  throne  of 
the  black  mantilla.  Eeformer  as  I  am,  I  would  fain  be  a  conserva- 
tive of  that  ancient  and  venerable  institution,  the  mantilla.  The 
French  will  have  much  to  answer  for,  if  they  supersede  with  their 
frippery  and  finery  this  beautiful  mode."  ^ 

Now,  as  in  the  busiest  days  of  his  life,  Cobden  was  a  volumi- 
nous and  untiring  letter- writer.  In  the  hottest  time  of  the  agita- 
tion against  the  Corn  Laws,  he  no  sooner  flung  off  his  overcoat 
on  reaching  the  inn  after  a  long  journey  or  a  boisterous  meeting, 

1  To  F.  Colden,  March  31,  1835. 

2  To  Mr.  Foster,  from  Alexandria,  Nov.  28,  1836. 


y 


k/ 


30  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1836, 

than  he  called  for  pen  and  ink,  and  sat  down  to  write  letters  of 
argument,  remonstrance,  persuasion,  direction.  And  when,  as 
now,  he  was  travelling  for  relaxation,  the  same  impulse  was  irre- 
sistibly strong  upon  him,  the  same  expansive  desire  to  communi- 
cate to  others  his  impressions,  ideas,  and  experiences.  "I  am 
writing  this,"  he  says  on  one  occasion,  "  whilst  sailing  down  the 
Nile  on  my  return  to  Alexandria,  and  it  is  penned  upon  no  better 
desk  than  my  knees,  while  sitting  cross-legged  upon  my  mattress, 
in  the  cabin  of  a  boat  not  high  enough  in  the  roof  to  allow  me 
even  to  stand."  ^  No  physical  inconvenience  and  no  need  of  re- 
pose ever  dulled  his  willingness  either  to  hear  or  to  speak.  The 
biographer's  only  embarrassment  is  difficulty  of  selection  from 
superabundant  material.  Journals  and  letters  alike  show  the 
same  man,  of  quick  observation,  gay  spirits,  and  a  disposition 
that,  on  its  serious  side,  was  energetically  reflective  rather  than 
contemplative.  I  wish  that  I  could  reproduce  his  journals,  but 
they  are  too  copious  for  the  limits  of  my  space ;  and  the  state- 
ments of  commercial  fact  which  they  contain  are  no  longer  true, 
while  the  currents  of  trade  which  Cobden  took  such  pains  to 
trace  out,  have  long  since  shifted  their  direction.  He  was  an 
eager  and  incessant  questioner,  and  yet  his  journals  show  a  man 
who  is  acquiring  knowledge,  not  with  the  elaborate  conscientious- 
ness of  a  set  purpose,  but  with  the  ease  of  natural  and  spontane- 
ous interest.  There  is  no  overdone  earnestness ;  life  is  not  crushed 
out  of  us  by  the  sledge-hammer  of  the  statistical  bore ;  there  is  the 
charm  of  disengagement,"  and  the  faculty  of  disengagement  is  one 
of  the  secrets  of  the  most  effective  kind  of  character.  Elaborate 
inquiries  as  to  imports  and  exports  do  not  prevent  him  from  being 
well  pleased  to  go  ashore  at  Tenos,  *'  to  amuse  ourselves  for  a  day 
with  leaping,  throwing,  and  jumping."  As  the  serious  interests 
of  his  journey  —  the  commercial  and  political  circumstances  of 
Egypt,  Greece,  and  Turkey  —  are  no  longer  in  the  same  case,  it 
can  hardly  be  worth  while  to  transcribe  his  account  of  them. 

The  following  extracts  from  his  letters  to  his  sisters  will  serve 
to  show  his  route  :  — 

Gibraltar,  11  Nov.,  1836.  —  "Before  us  arose  the  towering  and 
impregnable  fortress  ;  on  every  side  land  was  distinctly  visible  ; 
my  first  inquiry  was,  Where  is  the  coast  of  Africa  ?  It  was  a 
natural  curiosity.  A  quarter  of  the  globe  where  white  men's  feet 
have  but  partially  trod,  whose  sandy  plains  and  mountains  are 
unknown,  and  where  imagination  may  revel  in  unreal  creations 
of  the  terrible,  was  for  the  first  time  presented  to  my  view.  Can 
you  doubt  that  the  thought  which  arose  in  my  mind  for  a  time 
absorbed  all  other  reflections  ?     Yet  all  I  could  see  was  the  dark 

1  To  Charles  Cobden,  Jan  8,  1837. 


^T.32.]  TRAVELS   IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  31 

sable  outline  of  the  coast  of  Barbary,  a  congenial  shroud  for  the 
gloomy  scene  of  pagan  woes  and  Christian  crimes  that  have  been 
enacted  in  the  regions  beyond ! 

."  The  two  particulars/'  he  continued,  "  which  strike  most 
strongly  the  eye  of  the  visitor  who  has  passed  from  Spain  and 
Portugal  to  this  place,  are  the  bustling  activity  of  Gibraltar,  as 
contrasted  with  the  deserted  condition  of  Lisbon  and  Cadiz,  and 
the  variety  of  the  costumes  and  characters  which  suddenly  offer 
themselves  to  his  notice.  To  see  botli  to  advantage,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  visit  the  open  square  opposite  to  the  Exchange,  where  the 
auctions  and  other  business  draw  a  concourse  of  all  the  inhabi- 
tants and  sojourners  in  this  rocky  Babel. 

"  Fortunately  our  hotel  opens  immediately  upon  this  lively 
scene,  and  I  have  spent  hours  in  surveying  from  above  the  varie- 
gated lines  of  the  motley  multitude  below.  By  far  the  most  dig- 
nified and  interesting  figure  is  the  Moor,  who,  with  his  turban, 
rich  yellow  slippers,  ample  flowing  robes,  and  bare  legs,  presents 
a  picturesque  figure  which  is  admirably  contrasted  with  that  of  a 
Catalonian,  who  —  with  a  red  cap,  which  depends  from  a  black 
band  that  encircles  his  head,  like  a  long  bag,  down  nearly  to  his 
waist,  pantaloons  which  are  braced  up  to  his  armpits,  and  short 
round  jacket — may  be  seen  jostling  with  the  idle  smuggler,  with 
his  leather  embroidered  leggings,  his  breeches  of  velvet  adorned 
with  side  rows  of  bright  basket  buttons,  his  sash,  embroidered 
jacket,  and  grotesque  conical  hat;  whose  life  is  a  romance  and 
probably  a  tragedy,  and  every  one  of  whose  gestures  is  viewed 
with  interest  as  the  by-play  of  one  who  by  turns  acts  the  part  of 
a  contrabandista,  a  bandit,  or  an  assassin.  Next  is  the  Jew,  who 
is  here  beheld  in  the  most  abject  guise  of  his  despised  class :  a 
rude  mantle  of  the  coarsest  blanketing  covers  his  crouching  figure, 
bent  by  the  severe  toil  with  which  he  here  earns  a  miserable  sub- 
sistence; he  is  waiting  with  a  patient  and  leaning  aspect  the  call 
of  some  purchaser.  His  bare  legs  and  uncovered  head  and  the 
ropes  indicative  of  his  laborious  calling,  which  are  probably  fast- 
ened loosely  about  his  waist,  altogether  give  him  the  appearance 
of  one  who  has  been  condemned  to  a  life  of  penance  for  the  expia- 
tion of  some  heinous  crimes:  —  alas,  he  is  only. the  personification 
of  the  fate  of  his  tribe !  But  I  could  not  find  space  to  portray 
tlie  minor  features  of  the  scene  before  me.  Here  are  English, 
French,  Spanish,  Italian,  Mahometans,  Christians,  and  Jews,  all 
bawling  and  jostling  each  other,  some  buying,  others  selling  or 
bartering,  whilst  the  fierce  competition  for  profit  is  maintained 
by  a  mingled  din  of  the  Spanish,  Arabic,  Lingua  Franca,  and 
English  tongues.  This  is  a  scene  only  to  be  viewed  in  Gibraltar, 
and  it  is  worthy  of  the  pains  of  a  pilgrimage  from  afar  to  be- 
hold it." 


32  LIFE   OF   COBDEN. 


[1836. 


Gibraltar,  11  Nov.,  1836.  — "A  trip  was  made  by  a  party  of 
five  of  us  on  horseback  to  a  convent  fifteen  miles  off.  The  road 
lies  through  a  cork  wood,  and  it  is  a  favorite  excursion  from  the 
garrison.  It  was  delightful,  after  seeing  nothing  but  barren  rocks, 
and  being  confined  to  the  limits  of  this  fortress  —  which  is  seven 
miles  in  circumference  —  to  find  ourselves  galloping  through 
woods  where  hundreds  of  pathways  allowed  one  unlimited  range, 
and  where  thousands  of  beautiful  trees  and  plants  peculiar  to  this 
part  arrested  our  attention.  The  doctor  ^  was  in  a  botanical  mood 
at  once,  and  we  all  gathered  about  to  learn  from  him  the  names 
and  properties  of  such  plants  as  were  to  us  new  acquaintances. 
After  filling  our  pockets  with  seeds  and  specimens,  we  pursued 
our  journey  to  the  convent,  which  is  a  dilapidated  building,  in 
which  we  found  only  one  solitary  monk.  A  large  courtyard, 
in  which  were  two  or  three  gaunt-looking  dogs,  who  from  their 
manners  appeared  unused  to  receive  visitors ;  extensive  stables, 
in  which  we  found  only  the  foals  of  an  ass,  in  place  of  a  score  of 
horses ;  a  belfry  without  ropes ;  vast  kitchens,  but  no  fire ;  and 
spacious  corridors,  dormitories,  and  refectories,  in  which  I  could 
not  discover  a  vestige  of  furniture,  revealed  a  picture  of  desolation 
and  loneliness.  We  walked  into  the  gardens  and  found  oranges 
ripening,  and  the  fig-tree,  pomegranate,  sago-palm,  olives,  and 
grape-vines  flourishing  amidst  weeds  that  were  almost  impervious 
to  our  feet.  The  country  around  was  wild,  and  harmonized  with 
the  ruined  and  abandoned  fortunes  of  the  convent.  After  par- 
taking of  some  brown  bread,  eggs,  and  chestnuts,  from  the  hands 
of  the  monk,  and  after  enlivening  his  solitary  cloisters  with  the 
unwonted  echoes  of  our  merriment,  in  which  we  found  our  poor 
old  host  willing  to  indulge,  we  left  him,  and  returned  through  the 
cork  wood  to  our  quarters  here." 

Alexandria,  30  Nov.,  1836.  —  "  In  consequence  of  the  arrival  of 
the  governor,  we  were  greeted  with  much  noise  and  rejoicing  by 
the  good  folks  of  Malta.  The  town  was  illuminated,  band's  of 
singers  paraded  the  streets,  the  opera  was  thrown  open,  and 
all  was  giv^n  up  to  fun  and  revelry.  We  saw  all  that  we  could 
of  the  proceedings,  and  heard  during  the  night  more  than  we 
could  have  wished,  considering  that  we  wanted  a  quiet  sleep. 
However,  it  was  necessary  for  us  to  be  up  betimes  in  the  morn- 
ing, to  make  some  preparations  for  our  journey  in  Egypt.  The 
good  doctor  was  in  a  great  bustle,  purchasing  the  biscuits,  brandy, 
and  other  little  commodities  ;  it  was  necessary  also  that  we  should 
engage  a  trusty  servant  at  Malta,  to  accompany  us  through  the 
voyage.  Our  friends  recommended  a  man  named  Eosario  Villa, 
who  had  made  the  excursion  up  the  hill  several  times  with  Eng- 

^   1  Dr.  Wilson,  his  travelling  companion,  whose  acquaintance  he  had  first  made 
in  his  voyage  home  from  the  United  States. 


^T.32.]  TRAVELS   IN   WEST  AND  EAST.  33 

lish  tourists  —  spoke  Arabic,  English,  and  Italian,  and  knew  the 
whole  of  Egypt  and  Syria  thoroughly.  Rosario  was  introduced 
to  us.  Now,  I  ask  you,  does  not  the  name  at  once  tell  you  that 
he  was  a  smart  elegant  young  fellow,  with  a  handsome  face,  good 
figure,  and  an  insinuating  address  ?  Such  is  the  idea  which  you 
will  naturally  have  formed  of  a  Maltese  named  Eosario  Villa. 
Stop  a  moment  till  1  have  described  him.  He  is  a  little  elderly 
man  with  a  body  as  dried  and  shrivelled  as  a  reindeer's  tongue, 
only  not  so  fresh-colored  —  for  his  face  is  of  the  hue  of  the  inside 
of  tanned  shoe-leather,  but  wrinkled  over  like  a  New  Zealand 
mummy ;  a  low  forehead,  a  mouth  made  of  two  narrow  strips  of 
skin  drawn  back  nearly  to  the  ear  over  white  teeth,  and  with  his 
hair  cut  close,  but  leaving  a  little  fringe  of  stragglers  round  the 
front  —  such  is  the  picture  of  Rosario !  We  had  no  time  to  be 
fastidious,  and  his  character  being  unquestionable,  we  engaged 
him  at  once,  and  in  two  hours  he  had  made  all  his  worldly 
arrangements  and  was  on  the  way  at  our  side  to  the  steamboat. 
Here  he  was  met  by  his  friends  and  acquaintances,  who  took 
leave  of  him  with  many  embraces,  and  I  could  not  doubt  that  the 
soul  was  good  which  drew  the  kisses  at  his  parting  to  such  a 
body ! 

"It  was  five  o'clock  in  the  evening  and  the  sun  was  beginning 
to  prepare  to  leave  this  latitude  for  your  western  lands,  when  we 
slipped  out  of  the  boat  upon  the  quay  of  Alexandria.  A  scene 
followed  which  I  must  endeavor  to  describe.  Our  luggage  and 
that  of  an  Irish  friend  was  brought  from  the  boat  and  deposited 
on  a  kind  of  platform  immediately  in  front  of  a  shed,  which  is 
ennobled  by  the  name  of  Custom-House.  Upon  a  bench,  a  little 
raised,  sat  a  fat  little  Turk  with  a  broad  square  face,  whose  fat 
cheeks  hung  down  in  pendulous  masses  on  each  side  of  his  mouth, 
after  the  fashion  of  the  English  mastiff  dog  shown  as  a  specimen 
in  the  Zoological  Gardens.  Our  servant  Rosario  has  endeavored 
to  hire  a  camel  to  put  our  luggage  upon,  but  there  is  none  at 
hand.  A  crowd  of  Arab  porters  has  gathered  about,  offering  their 
services,  and  each  is  talking  at  the  top  of  his  voice ;  after  due 
bargaining,  or  rather  jostling,  haggling,  and  gesticulating,  the 
agreement  is  concluded,  and  a  dozen  of  the  shortest  of  the  liam- 
mals  or  porters  have  proceeded  to  adjust  their  several  portions  of 
the  luggage,  when  whack,  crack,  thwack,  a  terrible  rout  is  here  1 

"  The  little  fat  Turk  whom  I  verily  believe  to  have  been  dream- 
ing as  he  sat  so  tranquilly  smoking  his  long  pipe,  whose  glowing 
ashes  had  the  moment  before  attracted  my  eye  by  its  glare  in  the 
advancing  twilight,  has  caused  this  panic.  Throwing  aside  his 
chibouque,  and  grasping  a  short  cane,  without  troubling  himself 
to  speak  a  word,  he  has  rushed  with  the  suddenness  of  inspiration 
into  the  midst  of  the  screaming  and  litigious  gang,  and  plying  his 

3 


34  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1836. 

baton  riglit  and  left  over  the  shoijlders,  head,  and  arms,  dealing 
out  an  extra  share  of  chastisement  upon  those  who,  from  having 
been  loaded  with  our  chattels,  could  not  so  easily  escape  his  fury, 
until  he  has  cleared  the  ground  of  every  turbaned  rogue  of  them, 
and  left  us  standing  amidst  our  scattered  and  disordered  trunks, 
bags,  and  portmanteaus,  not  knowing  what  was  to  follow.  I  am 
soon  able,  however,  to  guess  what  is  at  the  bottom  the  meaning 
of  this  unexpected  apparition  of  the  little  dignitary,  and  the  sud- 
den Hegira  of  our  porters ;  for  after  calmly  resuming  his  pipe, 
and  giving  it  two  or  three  inspirations  to  reanimate  the  decaying 
embers,  he  takes  Eosario  on  one  side  and  whispers  a  few  words 
in  his  ear,  the  import  of  which  you  may  suppose  is  that  the  luggage 
must  all  go  to  the  custom-house,  but  to  save  us  that  trouble  he 
will  allow  us  in  consideration  of  some  backshish  (or  a  present  of 
money)  to  take  them  with  us. 

"  This  little  difficulty  being  got  over,  our  luggage  and  ourselves 
are  under  weigh  through  the  dark  streets  of  Alexandria,  whose 
houses  appear  to  have  rudely  turned  their  back  premises  to  the 
front,  for  you  can  see  nothing  but  blank  walls  without  windows 
or  doors.  The  English  hotel  lay  at  some  distance,  and  we  had 
occasion  to  pass  through  one  of  the  gates  of  the  town,  where  we 
were  met  by  a  guard,  a  fellow  in  a  white  turban,  who  laid  violent 
hands  upon  the  leader  of  our  party,  who  happened  to  be  the  good 
doctor  himself,  and  arrested  our  further  progress  under  some  pre- 
tence which  I  could  not  comprehend,  but  I  distinctly  again  caught 
the  sound  of  the  word  backshish.  We  hesitated  whether  we  should 
give  the  rascal  a  shilling  or  a  good  beating;  —  the  doctor  had 
raised  his  heavy  umbrella  in  favor  of  the  latter  alternative,  when 
my  vote,  which  you  know  is  always  in  favor  of  peace,  decided  it 
in  behalf  of  a  fee,  to  the  extent  of  five  piastres,  and  with  this  sub- 
sidy to  the  Pacha's  representative  we  departed  amicably.  On  the 
way  through  the  narrow  streets  of  Alexandria  we  met  many 
Turks,  whose  attendants  bore  small  lamps  of  paper  or  gauze,  with 
which  they  always  politely  showed  us  our  road.  I  begin  to  think 
that  these  are  well-bred  barbarians,  after  all  my  abuse  of  them 
and  their  religion ! 

"  Mrs.  Hume's  hotel  is  a  large  detached  building  situated  a  long 
distance  from  the  Turkish  quarter,  and  surrounded  by  date-trees 
of  luxuriant  growth.  I  ran  out  and  wandered  here  by  moonlight 
the  very  night  of  my  arrival.  The  scene  was  indeed  delicious 
after  a  tedious  and  unpleasant  voyage.  I  thought  of  you  all,  and 
only  wished  for  one  of  you  at  least  to  share  my  exciting  enjoy- 
ment. Well  has  it  been  said  that  'happiness  was  horn  a  twin,'  and 
you,  my  dear  M.,  somehow  or  other  seem  naturally  associated  with 
me  in  my  ideal  pleasures.  I  fancied  that  you  were  with  me,  and 
that  we  were  equally  happy. 


JEt.32.]  travels  IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  35 

"  When  T  arose  in  the  morning,  I  found  that  it  was  the  season 
for  gathering  the  dates.  The  Arabs  were  swinging  about  in  the 
branches  of  this  elegant  tree  by  means  of  ropes,  and  gathering  in 
large  baskets  the  ripe  fruit,  which  hung  in  luxuriant  bunches.  I 
am  an  admirer  of  the  useful,  you  know,  but  how  much  more  do 
I  love  the  combination  of  utility  and  elegance  !  On  the  date-tree 
you  find  both  in  perfection.  There  is  the  handsomest  tree  in  the 
world,  bearing  the  sole  fruit  which  afforded  nourishment  to  the 
wandering  children  of  the  desert,  and  a  charming  fruit  is  the  date. 
I  have  subscribed  a  trifle  to  the  Turk  who  rents  this  plantation, 
for  the  privilege  of  walking  through  it,  whenever  I  please,  and 
helping  myself  freely  to  its  produce.  There  are  very  few  curiosi- 
ties to  detain  the  traveller  in  Alexandria.  Pompey's  Pillar,  and 
Cleopatra's  Needle,  and  the  catacombs,  and  a  few  other  half-buried 
ruins,  are  all  that  now  remains  to  attest  the  ancient  splendor  of  a 
city  which  once  contained  4000  baths,  and  counted  a  population 
of  600,000  souls.  These  curious  fragments  of  departed  grandeur 
have  been  often  described,  and  are  so  little  intrinsically  interesting, 
that  I  shall  say  nothing  about  them. 

"The  monuments  called  Cleopatra's  Needles  are  enormous 
masses  of  granite.  One  only  stands,  the  other  was  thrown  down 
and  half  buried  in  the  sand  in  an  attempt  to  remove  it  to  England. 
Mark  the  folly  aftd  injustice  of  carrying  these  remains  from  the 
site  where  they  were  originally  placed,  and  from  amidst  the  asso- 
ciations which  gave  them  all  their  interest,  to  London  or  Paris, 
w^here  they  become  merely  objects  of  vulgar  wonderment,  and  be- 
sides are  subjected  to  the  destroying  effects  of  our  humid  climate. 
It  is  to  be  hoped  that  good  taste,  or  at  least  the  feelings  of  economy 
which  now  pervade  our  rulers'  minds,  will  prevent  this  vestige  of 
the  days  of  the  Pharaohs  from  being  removed.^ 

"  I  dined  with  Mr.  Muir  at  twelve  o'clock.  His  Greek  servant, 
a  man  of  remarkable  elegance  and  gracefulness,  quiet,  grave,  and 

1  Theophile  Gautier  makes  the  Paris  obelisk  muse  in  Cobden's  sense :  — 

Sur  cette  place  je  m'ennuie, 
Obelisque  depareille  ; 
Neige,  givre,  bruine,  et  pluie 
Glacent  mon  tlanc  deja  rouille  ; 

Et  ma  vieille  aiguille,  rougie 
Aux  fournaises  d'un  ciel  de  feu, 
Prend  des  paleurs  de  nostalgic 
Dans  cet  air  qui  n'est  jamais  bleu. 

La  sentinelle  granitique, 
Gardienne  des  enormit^s, 


And  so  forth. 


Se  dresse  entre  un  faux  temple  antique 
Et  la  cliambre  des  deputes. 


36  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1836. 

full  of  dignity  at  every  gesture.  What  a  power  such  grace  has  over 
my  mind  !  "  ^ 

Cairo,  Dec.  20,  1836.  —  "I  slept  tolerably  well  after  having 
been  for  the  first  time  made  acquainted  with  my  old  torment,  the 
fleas.  You  will  wonder  when  I  tell  you  that  use  has  since  made 
me  almost  indifferent  to  such  trifles.  The  Arab  sailors  who  formed 
our  crew  were  miserable  wretches,  half  clothed  in  dirty  rags,  and 
two  of  them  were  suffering  from  ophthalmia,  I  had  heard  much 
of  the  character  of  the  degraded  population  of  Egypt,  and  was  told 
by  those  who  knew  no  better,  that  severity  and  harshness  were  the 
only  methods  of  making  them  work.  My  idea  is,  you  know,  that 
rewards  and  not  punishments  are  the  most  effectual  means  of 
stimulating  men,  and  so  it  proved.  The  backshish  kept  the  boat 
going,  when  stripes  would  have  only  made  it  stand.  At  Atfeh  we 
paid  the  reis  or  captain  his  five  dollars,  and  gave  his  men  a  few 
piastres,  and  I  parted  with  my  usual  good  opinion  of  human  nature. 

"  Scarcely  had  we  reached  tlie  shore,  when  we  were  followed  by 
the  reis,  bringing  three  bad  pieces  of  money  which  he  accused  the 
good  doctor,  the  cashier,  of  having  paid  him.  It  was  clearly  an 
imposition,  and  Kosario  told  us  we  should  encounter  similar  con- 
duct at  every  stage.  We  changed  the  money,  resolving  to  be  on 
our  guard  in  future.  Mi/  ideas  of  human  nature  were  less  exalted 
for  a  minute  and  a  half  tha,n  usual. 

"  To  proceed  from  Atfeh  to  Cairo,  a  distance  of  150  miles  by  the 
Nile,  it  was  necessary  to  embark  on  board  a  larger  boat,  but  here  we 
found  that  the  ladies,  who  had  just  preceded  us,  had  taken  all  the 
good  boats.  We  learnt,  however,  that  a  new  and  commodious  boat 
was  lying  at  the  town  of  Fooah  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river, 
rather  higher  up  the  stream,  and  we  took  a  ferry,  and  carried  our 
luggage  over,  accompanied  by  the  Vice-Consul,  a  little  Italian,  who, 
politely  as  we  thought,  agreed  to  bargain  for  us.  The  boat  with 
twelve  men  was  hired  for  500  piastres,  or  5^.,  and  it  was  agreed 
that  we  should  start  as  soon  as  our  luggage  was  on  board.  In  the 
mean  time  I  went  into  a  cotton-mill  in  the  neighborhood,  which 
presented  a  miserable  appearance.  Upon  leaving,  I  gave  hackshish 
to  one  of  the  managers,  who  followed  me  immediately  with  a  bad 
piece  of  money,  which  he  accused  me  of  having  paid  him.  I 
threatened  to  shoot  him,  or  something  equally  improbable,  and 
thus  escaped  this  attempt.  Our  Vice-Consul  now  left  us,  and  we 
proposed  to  start,  but  the  owner  of  the  boat  very  coolly  ordered  a 
cargo  of  wood  to  be  laid  alongside,  which  he  was  determined  to 
take  along  with  its  owner  to  Cairo.  As  this  would  have  left  no 
room  for  Eosario  or  Hussein  for  sleeping,  we  resisted,  and  all  began 
to  grow  out  of  humor.     We  threw  the  wood  out  of  the  boat,  and 

1  Journal. 


iST.32.]  TRAVELS   IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  37 

drove  the  porters,  who  were  attempting  to  load,  ashore.  A  fresh 
difficulty  now  arose.  The  owner  of  the  boat  refused  to  let  her 
start  until  the  next  day,  and  very  soon  all  the  crew,  reis  and  all, 
disappeared.  My  opinion  of  humanity  sank  several  degrees.  It 
now  grew  towards  evening.  We  were  moored  alongside  of  the 
town  of  Fooah,  and  just  opposite  to  a  khan  or  coffee-house,  in  the 
balcony  of  wliich  sat  the  owner  of  the  boat,  smoking  his  long  pipe 
and  surrounded  by  a  party  of  lazy  rascals  like  himself,  who  were 
all  singing  and  laughing,  probably  amused  at  our  dilemma.  Much 
as  it  is  against  my  principles,  I  now  resorted  to  brute  force.  I 
took  the  pistols  out  of  the  portmanteau  where  Fred  had  placed 
them  loaded  and  primed,  but  not  without  secret  resolves  that  I 
vv^ould  not  injure  any  one.  The  doctor  also  arrived,  and  we  went 
ashore  to  find  the  governor  of  the  town,  intending  to  make  a  com- 
plaint. It  was  dark,  and  we  had  a  difficulty  in  finding  out  that 
the  principal  officer  of  Fooah  was  from  home,  but  on  inquiry  for 
his  deputy,  we  were  told  that  the  owner  of  the  boat  against  whom 
we  complained,  was  the  man  himself !  Thus  the  judge  and  crimi- 
nal were  one  person,  which  was  certainly  against  our  cause.  How- 
ever, we  proceeded  straight  to  the  khan,  and  by  means  of  Eosario 
for  an  interpreter,  we  made  the  vice-governor  understand  that  he 
was  a  rascal,  and  threatened  to  have  him  punished  by  our  friend 
the  Pacha.  He  protested  that  he  only  acted  for  the  safety  of  our- 
selves ;  that  the  Vice-Consul  had  entrusted  us  to  his  charge  as 
travellers  of  the  first  consideration;  that  the  sky  predicted  a 
storm ;  and  that  he  could  not,  out  of  regard  for  such  valuable  lives, 
suffer  us  to  go  out  that  night.  So  finding  there  was  no  help  for 
our  difficulties  but  in  patience  and  submission,  we  went  on  board, 
laughed  at  ourselves,  supped,  and  slept." 

"  In  the  morning  (Sunday,  December  4th)  we  started  with  a 
favorable  wind  up  the  Nile.  On  looking  round,  however,  we  found 
that  we  had  only  six  sailors  instead  of  twelve,  and  we  now  learnt 
that  this  was  the  reason  why  the  boat  could  not  venture  out  at 
night.  We  found  also  from  our  man  Hussein,  that  the  Vice- 
Consul  had  received  a  handsome  backshish  out  of  the  5/.  we 
were  to  pay  for  the  boat.  Altogether  my  opinion  of  the  Egyptians 
received  a  smart  shock  —  they  were  for  an  hour  or  so  down  at 
zero.  The  aspect  of  the  scenery  of  the  Nile  at  and  above  Fooah, 
though  flat,  was  very  interesting  to  us  at  first.  The  minarets  in 
the  distance,  the  palms  on  the  banks,  the  brilliant  foliage,  all  gave 
it  a  pleasant  effect  to  a  stranger  to  such  scenes.  The  river,  which 
is  of  a  yellow-red  complexion,  is  here  of  the  width  of  the  Thames 
at  London." 

"This  day  (December  16th)  is  an  era  in  my  travels.  I  went 
with  Captain  E.  and  Mr.  Hill  to  see  the  Pyramids.  They^djsap- 
point  the  visitor  until  he  gets  close  to  them.     My  first  feelings, 


38  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1836. 

along  with  a  due  sense  of  astonishment,  were  those  of  vexation  at 
the  enormous  sum  of  ingenious  labor  which  here  was  wasted. 
Six  millions  of  tons  of  stone,  all  shaped  and  fitted  with  skill,  are 
here  piled  in  a  useless  form.  The  third  of  this  weight  of  material 
and  less  than  a  tenth  part  of  the  labor  sufficed  to  construct  the 
most  useful  public  work  in  England  — the  Plymouth  Breakwater."  ^ 

Cairo,  December  20th,  1836.  —  "Last  evening  was  the  interest- 
ing time  appointed  for  an  interview  with  no  less  a  personage  than 
Mehemet  Ali,  the  Pacha  of  Egypt.  Our  Consul,  Colonel  C.,^  had 
the  day  before  waited  upon  this  celebrated  person,  to  say  that  he 
wished  to  present  some  British  travellers  to  his  Highness,  and 
he  appointed  the  following  evening  at  six  o'clock,  which  is  his 
usual  hour  of  receiving  visitors  during  the  fast  of  Eamadan.  At 
the  appointed  hour  we  assembled,  to  the  number  of  six  indi- 
viduals, at  the  house  of  Colonel  C,  and  from  thence  we  immedi- 
ately proceeded  to  the  palace,  which  is  in  the  citadel,  and  about 
half  an  hour's  ride  from  the  Consul's. 

"  Our  way  lay  through  the  most  crowded  part  of  the  town.  It 
was  quite  dark,  but  being  at  the  season  of  the  Eamadan  (the 
Mahometan  Lent)  when  Turks  fast  and  abstain  from  business 
during  the  day,  but  feast  and  illuminate  their  bazaars  and  public 
buildings  during  the  night,  we  found  the  streets  lighted  up,  and 
all  the  population  apparently  just  beginning  the  day's  occupations. 
.  .  .  Away  we  went  through  streets  and  bazaars,  some  of  which 
were  less  than  eight  feet  wide,  and  all  of  them  being  crowded  with 
Turks,  Arabs,  camels,  horses,  and  donkeys.  All,  however,  made 
way  at  the  approach  of  the  janissary  and  the  uplifted  grate  of  fire, 
both  of  which  are  signs  of  the  rank  of  the  persons  who  followed. 
Besides,  to  do  justice  even  to  Turks,  I  must  add  that  1  never  saw 
a  people  less  disposed  to  quarrel  with  you  about  trifles  than  the 
population  of  Cairo.  You  may  run  over  them,  or  pummel  them 
with  your  feet,  as  you  squeeze  them  almost  to  death  against  the 
wall,  and  they  only  seem  astonished  that  you  give  yourself  any 
concern  afterguards,  to  know  if  they  be  still  in  the  land  of  tlie 
living.  As  for  the  foot  of  an  ass  or  dromedary,  if  it  be  placed 
gently  on  their  toes,  and  only  withdrawn  in  time  for  them  to  light 
their  pipe  or  say  their  prayers,  which  are  the  only  avocations  they 
follow,  wdiy,  they  say  nothing  about  such  trifles. 

"As  we  proceeded  along  the  streets,  or  rather  alleys,  of  this 
singular  city,  it  was  curious  to  observe  the  doings  of  the  good 
Mussulmans,  who  had  just  an  hour  before  been  released  from  the 
observance  of  the  severe  ordinance  of  the  prophet.  Some  were 
busy  cooking  their  savory  stews  over  little  charcoal  fires  ;  here 

1  Journal. 

2  "A  martinet  taken  from  the  regimental  mess,  to  watch  and  regulate  the  commer- 
cial intercourse  of  a  trading  people  with  a  merchant  pacha."  —  Journal. 


^T.32.]  TRAVELS   IN   WEST   AND  EAST.  39 

you  might  see  a  party  seated  round  a  dish,  into  which  every  indi- 
vidual was  actively  thrusting  his  fist ;  and  occasionally  we  passed 
a  public  fountain,  around  the  doors  and  windows  of  which  crowds 
of  half-famished  true  believers  were  pressing,  eager  to  quench 
their  tliirst,  probably  for  the  first  time  since  sunrise.  Some,  who 
no  doubt  had  already  satisfied  the  more  pressing  calls  of  nature, 
were  seated  round  a  company  of  musicians,  and  listening  with 
becoming  gravity  to  strains  of  barbarous  music,  whilst  in  another 
place  a  crowd  of  turbans  had  gathered  about  a  juggler,  who  was 
exercising  the  credulity  of  the  faithful  by  his  magical  deceptions. 
By  far  the  greater  portion,  however,  of  those  we  passed  were  sit- 
ting cross-legged,  enjoying  the  everlasting  pipe,  and  so  intent 
were  they  upon  the  occupation  that  they  scarcely  deigned  to  cast 
a  glance  at  us  as  we  passed. 

"As  we  approached  nearer  to  the  citadel,  the  scene  changed. 
We  now  met  numbers  of  military  of  all  ranks,  who  were  issuing 
from  the  head-quarters,  some  accoutred  for  the  night  watch, 
others  dressed  in  splendid  suits  and  mounted  upon  spirited  horses. 
I  saw  some  officers  in  the  Mameluke  costume,  which  you  may  see 
pictured  in  old  books  of  travel  in  this  country.  Contrasted  with 
these  was  the  dress  of  the  private  troops  who  led  the  way,  and 
whose  white  cotton  garments,  close  jacket,  and  musket  with 
bayonet,  gave  them  a  half  European  aspect.  Here  too  we  found 
ourselves  surrounded  by  numerous  horsemen,  who  like  ourselves 
were  proceeding  at  this,  his  customary  hour  of  levee,  to  pay  their 
respects  to  the  Pacha.  At  length  we  entered  the  gates  of  the 
citadel,  and  immediately  the  road  assumed  a  steep  winding 
character  admirably  adapted  for  the  purposes  of  defence.  On 
each  side,  as  we  advanced,  we  found  ourselves  enclosed  by  lofty 
walls,  and,  by  the  light  of  the  burning  grate  of  pine-wood  which 
was  raised  aloft  in  our  van,  I  could  distinguish  tlie  embrasures 
and  loopholes  for  musketry.  I  shuddered  as  I  thought  of  the 
massacre  of  the  Mamelukes,  which  was  perpetrated  near  this  very 
spot,  a  deed  unparalleled  in  the  annals  of  the  world  for  perfidious 
and  cold-blooded  atrocity. 

"  The  circumstances  of  the  massacre  are  briefly  these.  Mehemet 
Ali,  having  by  a  series  of  daring  attacks,  and  aided  by  much  cun- 
ning artifice,  deposed  the  Mameluke  rulers  who  had  governed 
Egypt  for  more  than  seven  centuries,  and  placed  himself  upon  the 
throne  of  the  country,  made  a  kind  of  capitulation  with  the  fallen 
chiefs,  by  which  he  agreed  to  give  them  support  and  protection. 
In  consequence,  they  came  to  reside  in  great  numbers  in  Cairo, 
where  they  conducted  themselves  peaceably.  On  the  occasion  of 
a  fete  in  honor  of  his  son,  the  Pacha  invited  the  Mamelukes  to 
attend  and  assist  at  the  festivities.^     They  entered  the  palace 

^  The  massacre  of  the  Mamelukes  took  place  on  March  1,  1811. 


40  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1836. 

of  the  citadel,  to  the  number  of  470,  dressed  in  their  gorgeous  and 
picturesque  costume,  but  without  arms.  Mehemet  Ali  received 
them  with  smiles,  and  it  was  remarked  that  he  was  more  than 
usually  courteous.  They  departed,  their  hearts  lighted  up  with 
a  glow  by  his  affability,  and  proceeded  in  a  gay  procession  down 
to  the  gate  which  we  had  just  passed ;  it  was  closed ;  as  the  first 
victim  reached  the  gate,  a  hundred  discharges  of  musketry  from 
the  walls  on  each  side  opened  upon  them.  They  turned  to  retreat, 
but  the  gate  behind  was  also  closed,  and  they  were  fast  in  the 
toils  of  their  betrayer  and  destroyer.  Only  one  man  is  said  to 
have  escaped,  who  rode  his  horse  up  a  steep  bank,  and  forced  him 
over  the  battlement  and  into  a  gulf  seventy  feet  deep  below. 
The  horse  was  killed,  but  the  rider  escaped,  and  made  his  way  to 
Europe.  Such  is  the  substance  of  a  deed  of  blood  which  had 
no  provocation,  no  state  necessity,  nor  a  semblance  even  of  justice, 
to  palliate  its  unmitigated  character  of  treachery,  and  yet  here  am 
I  —  I  recollected  with  emotions  of  shame  —  passing  over  the 
scene  of  such  a  bloody  tragedy,  to  do  obeisance  to  the  principal 
actor ! 

"  The  citadel  is  in  extent  and  appearance  something  like  a  con- 
siderable town.  As  we  proceeded  through  the  steep  and  winding 
avenue,  we  came  upon  a  thoroughfare  lighted  up  like  a  bazaar 
with  shops  or  stalls  on  each  side,  before  which  the  soldiers  were 
loitering  and  buying  fruit  or  other  articles  from  the  lazy  dealers, 
who  sat  cross-legged  upon  their  mats,  enveloped  in  tobacco 
smoke.  Having  passed  under  another  gateway,  and  along  a 
winding  arched  passage  of  massive  masonry,  an  abrupt  turning 
or  two  brought  us  to  a  large  open  square,  the  opposite  sides  of 
which  were  lighted  up.  Here,  as  we  approached  the  centre  of 
power  from  whence  all  rank,  wealth,  and  authority  are  derived  in 
this  region  of  despotism,  the  throng  of  military  of  all  ranks  be- 
came more  dense,  just  as  the  rays  of  light  or  the  circles  of  water 
are  closest  where  the  heat  or  motion  which  gives  them  existence  has 
its  origin.  We  dismounted  at  the  principal  entrance  and  found 
ourselves  in  a  hall,  which,  with  the  stairs  that  we  immediately 
ascended,  was  almost  impassable  for  the  crowds  of  military  who 
lounged  and  loitered  in  no  very  orderly  manner  by  the  way.  At 
the  head  of  the  stairs  we  entered  a  very  large  hall,  which  pre- 
sented a  curious  spectacle.  Along  its  whole  length  and  breadth, 
Avith  only  just  sufficient  interval  towards  one  of  the  sides  to 
afford  room  for  passing  to  a  door  at  the  farther  extremity,  were 
seen  cross-legged  upon  the  floor,  on  little  mats,  an  immense  num- 
ber of  Turkish  and  Arab  soldiers,  whose  arms  and  slippers  were 
lying  beside  them.  We  passed  along  the  entire  length  of  the 
large  room,  too  quickly  to  allow  of  more  than  a  moment's  surprise 
at  the  scene  before   us,  when   entering  another   apartment   we 


Mr.B2.']  TRAVELS   IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  41 

found  ourselves  in  a  great,  lofty  chamber,  from  the  centre  of 
which  hung  a  chandelier  holding  probably  twenty  yellowish- 
white  wax  candles,  and  in  the  centre  of  the  floor  stood  a  row  of 
four  gigantic  silver  candlesticks  like  those  used  in  Catholic  chap- 
els, and  each  holding  a  huge  candle  of  four  feet  in  length,  and 
a  proportionate  diameter.  By  their  United  light  we  could  very 
indistinctly  see  to  the  extremities  of  the  room,  from  whose  far- 
thest corner  one  or  two  persons  hastily  retired  as  we  entered, 
leaving  us,  as  I  thought,  alone  in  this  huge  apartment. 

"  Colonel  C,  who  preceded  our  party  a  few  steps,  now  bowed 
towards  the  farthest  corner  of  the  room  —  a  movement  which  we 
all  imitated  as  we  followed.  A  dozen  steps  brought  my  feet  close 
to  the  bowl  of  a  long,  superbly  enriched  pipe  which  rested  in  a 
little  pan  on  the  floor,  the  other  extremity  of  which  was  held  by 
a  short  and  rather  fat  personage,  who  was  seated  alone  just  to  the 
right  of  the  corner  of  the  room  upon  a  broad  and  soft  divan, 
which  ran  round  the  apartment  like  a  continual  sofa.  He  laid 
aside  his  pipe,  uttered  several  times  a  sentence,  which  we  guessed 
was  an  expression  of  welcome,  from  its  being  delivered  in  a  good- 
natured  and  affable  tone,  and  accompanied  at  each  repetition  by 
the  motion  of  his  hands,  as  he  pointed  with  more  of  hurry  than 
dignity  to  the  divan  on  each  side  of  him,  as  signs  for  us  to  be 
seated.  The  Colonel  took  his  place  to  the  right,  and  the  rest  of 
the  part}^  sat  down  upon  the  divan  in  the  order  in  which  they 
were  standing.  It  chanced  that  I  was  placed  immediately  to  his 
left,  and  thus  I  found  myself  quite  close,  or  at  least  as  near  as  I 
desire  ever  to  be,  to  Meheraet  Ali !  It  happened  that  at  the  mo- 
ment of  our  arrival  the  dragoman  or  interpreter  was  not  in  attend- 
ance, and  therefore  as  soon  as  we  were  seated  a  slight  embarrass- 
ment ensued.  The  Pacha  did  not  appear  in  the  least  ruffled  by 
the  neglect  of  his  officer ;  he  looked  towards  the  door,  called  for 
somebody,  but  not  impatiently  ;  then  turned  to  the  Colonel,  uttered 
a  few  words,  but  immediately  laughed  as  if  at  the  recollection  of 
his  not  being  understood.  Again  he  turned  his  eye  towards  the 
door,  called  in  a  louder  but  still  not  angry  tone  for  some  person, 
but  nobody  appearing,  he  then  turned  to  Colonel  C.  and  to  us, 
smiled,  fidgeted  on  his  seat,  rubbed  his  knee,  and  twisted  the 
fingers  of  a  remarkably  white  and  handsome  little  hand  in  the 
handle  of  his  sword.  All  this  was  but  the  affair  of  a  minute  or 
two,  when  an  attendant  of  apparent  rank  entered,  and  walked 
quickly  up  to  the  Pacha,  who  appeared  to  explain  good-hu- 
moredly  the  nature  of  our  predicament,  and  he  instantly  l)egan 
the  duty  of  interpreting.  The  Pacha  commenced  the  conversation 
by  offering  us  a  welcome;  upon  this  the  Colonel  made  an  observa- 
tion about  the  weather,  which,  how^ever  excusable  it  might  have 
been  in  a  country  where  Englishmen  have  adopted  it  as  a  habit 


42  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1836. 

of  introducing  themselves,  is  little  suited  to  this  latitude,  where 
uninterrupted  sunshine  prevails  for  seven  years  together.  Let 
me  leave  the  speakers  to  settle  the  preliminaries  of  their  inter- 
view, whilst  in  the  mean  time  I  describe  a  little  more  minutely 
the  principal  character  before  me. 

"  Mehemet  Ali  is,  I  am  told,  about  five  feet  six  or  seven  inches 
high,  but  as  he  now  sat  beside  me,  sunk  deeply  in  a  soft  divan, 
he  did  not  appear  even  so  tall ;  he  was  plainly  dressed  in  a  dark 
and  simple  suit,  and  wore  the  red  fez  or  tarboosh  cap,  which  is 
now  generally  substituted  for  the  turban  by  men  of  rank.  His 
features  are  regular  and  good,  and  his  face  might  be  called  hand- 
some, but  being  somewhat  rounded  by  fatness,  I  shall  use  the 
term  comely  as  more  expressive  of  its  character.  His  beard  is 
quite  white,  but  I  have  seen  many  amongst  his  subjects  with 
richer-looking  tufts  upon  their  chins.  I  glanced  at  the  form  of 
his  head,  which  is,  as  far  as  I  could  discern  through  its  cover, 
confirmatory  of  the  science  of  phrenology  —  its  huge  size  accord- 
ing with  the  extraordinary  force  of  character  displayed  by  this 
successful  soldier,  whilst  a  broad  and  massive  forehead  harmon- 
izes with  the  powerful  intellect  he  has  displayed  in  his  schemes 
of  personal  aggrandizement.  Yet  upon  the  whole  there  is  noth- 
ing extraordinary  or  striking  in  the  countenance  of  Mehemet  Ali. 
He  appeared  to  me  like  a  good-humored  man,  and  had  I  been 
called  upon  at  a  cursory  glance  to  give  an  opinion  upon  such  a 
person  in  a  private  station,  I  might  have  pronounced  him  an 
amiable  and  jocular  fellow  !  However,  as  I  was  seated  beside  an 
extraordinary  person,  it  was  natural  that  I  should  scrutinize  the 
expression  of  his  features  with  the  hope,  nay  the  determination, 
of  finding  something  more  than  common  in  his  physiognomy.  In 
doing  so  I  encountered  his  dark  eye  several  times,  and  thought  it 
did  not  improve  upon  closer  acquaintance.  His  mouth,  too, 
which  is  almost  concealed  beneath  his  white  moustachio,  seemed 
only  to  pretend  to  smile;  and  once  or  twice  I  observed  that, 
whilst  the  lips  were  putting  on  the  semblance  of  laughter,  his 
eye  was  busily  glancing  round  from  under  its  heavy  brows,  with 
anything  but  an  expression  of  unguarded  mirth.  If  the  eye  do 
not  reveal  the  human  character,  it  will  be  vain  to  look  for  it  in 
the  more  ignoble  features  of  the  countenance,  and  the  constant 
workings  of  this  '  mirror  of  the  soul '  alone  revealed  the  restless 
spirit  of  Mehemet  Ali.  I  never  beheld  a  more  unquiet  eye  than 
his,  as  it  glided  from  one  to  another  of  the  persons  around  him  ; 
it  was  incessantly  in  motion.  Its  glance,  however,  had  none  of 
that  overpowering^  character  which  beams  only  from  the  soul  of 
real  genius ;  —  there  was  neither  moral  nor  intellectual  grandeur 
in  the  look  of  the  person  before  me,  and  I  could  not  help  think- 
ing, as  he  stole  furtive  glances  first  at  us  and  next  at  the  door, 


^T.32.]  TRAVELS   IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  43 

that  that  eye  might  have  been  employed  in  watching  the  store  of 
his  quondam  tobacco  shop  from  the  pilfering  hands  of  his  Alba- 
nian countrymen,  with  greater  appropriateness  than  in  now  look- 
ing down  upon  us  from  the  divan  of  a  pacha.^ 

"  Altogether  there  was  as  little  dignity  as  possibly  can  be  con- 
ceived in  the  personal  appearance  of  Mehemet.  Were  I  to  con- 
fess what  were  the  feelings  which  predominated  in  my  mind  as  I 
regarded  him  whilst  he  sat,  or  rather  perched,  upright  on  the  mid- 
dle of  the  divan,  without  resting  or  reclining  upon  its  pillows, 
and  with  his  legs  tucked  beneath  him,  so  as  to  leave  only  his  slip- 
pers peeping  out  from  each  side  of  his  copious  nether  garments, 
they  certainly  partook  largely  of  the  ridiculous. 

"  Coffee  was  brought  to  us  in  little  cups  enclosed  in  covers  of 
filigree-work  made  of  silver,  and  which  I  was  afterwards  told  by 
one  of  the  party  (I  did  not  myself  notice  them)  was  richly  set 
with  diamonds. 

"  When  the  iirst  civilities  had  passed,  the  Pacha,  as  if  impa- 
tient of  unmeaning  puerilities,  took  up  the  conversation  with  an 
harangue  of  considerable  length,  which  he  delivered  with  great 
animation.  I  felt  curious  to  know  what  was  the  subject  which 
seemed  to  possess  so  much  interest  with  the  practical  mind  of  the 
Pacha.  Judge  then  of  my  astonishment  when  I  found  that  the 
burden  of  his  discourse  was  cotton  I  The  speaker  was  boasting 
of  the  richness  and  fertility  of  his  territory,  and  to  illustrate  the 
productiveness  of  Egypt,  he  gave  us  an  account  of  the  harvest  of 
a  particular  village  in  his  favorite  article  of  cotton  :  he  entered 
into  a  minute  calculation  of  the  population,  number  of  acres,  the 
weight  of  the  produce,  the  cost  of  raising,  and  the  value  in  the 
market,  and  then  gave  a  glowing  picture  of  the  wealth  and  pros- 
perity of  this  village,  which  bore  no  resemblance  to  any  place 
ever  seen  by  myself  or  any  other  traveller  in  his  miserable  coun- 
try. It  was  certainly  the  most  audacious  puff  ever  practised  upon 
the  credulity  of  an  audience,  when  Mehemet  Ali  vaunted  the 
happiness  and  wealth  of  some  '  sweet  Auburn '  in  his  wretched 
and  oppressed  Pachalic.  In  reply  to  his  statement,  which  sa- 
vored so  little  of  truth  that  I  thought  it  harmonized  completely 
with  the  false  expression  of  the  lips  which  uttered  it,  the  Consul 
directed  the  Pacha's  attention  to  the  gentleman  immediately  to 
his  left,  who  was  from  Manchester  in  England,  and  whom  he 
described  to  be  better  acquainted  than  any  person  present  with 
the  subject  he  was  speaking  upon.  At  this  remark,  he  turned 
sharply  round,  and  directed  a  look  towards  me,  in  which,  as  in 

1  Mehemet  Ali,  the  founder  of  the  present  system  of  government  in  Egypt,  was 
born  in  1768  at  a  small  town  on  the  Albanian  coast,  of  an  obscure  family.  For 
some  years  he  dealt  in  tobacco,  and  he  was  thirty  years  old  or  more  before  he  effect" 
ively  began  his  military  career. 


44  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1836. 

every  glance  of  his  eye,  suspicion  and  cunning  predominated. 
He  paused  for  a  moment,  and  the  Colonel,  not  knowing  whether 
his  hesitation  arose  from  having  imperfectly  understood  him, 
repeated  in  substance  his  observation,  and  explained  that  Man- 
chester was  the  chief  seat  of  the  British  manufacture,  and  that 
Liverpool  was  the  port  by  which  the  materials  reached  that  place. 
Mehemet  Ali  had  not  apparently  ever  heard  of  either  of  these 
cities.  There  was  another  pause  of  half  a  minute,  and  a  slight 
embarrassment  in  his  manner  (I  was  told  by  one  of  the  party 
afterwards  that  it  appeared  as  though  a  slight  flush  came  over  his 
face  at  the  same  instant),  when  he  abruptly  changed  the  topic  of 
conversation,  and  began  to  talk  of  his  navy.  I  was  puzzled  at 
the  moment  to  divine  the  cause  why  the  Pacha  shunned  a  dis- 
cussion about  his  favorite  cotton  ;  it  afterward  occurred  to  me, 
and  the  idea  was  confirmed  by  the  opinions  of  others  of  the  party, 
that  he  avoided  talking  on  a  subject  on  which  he  was  conscious 
that  he  had  greatly  exaggerated,  with  one  whom  he  believed, 
from  the  too  favorable  account  of  the  Consul,  to  be  better  in- 
formed than  himself. 

"  The  Pacha  now  proceeded  to  maintain  stoutly  that  the  quality 
of  his  Syrian  pines  was  equal  to  that  of  British  oak  for  the  pur- 
poses of  ship-building.  There  was  nothing  remarkable  in  the 
conversation  that  followed,  excepting  the  practical  shrewdness 
which  characterized  the  choice  and  handling  of  his  subjects  on 
the  part  of  Mehemet  Ali.  After  an  interview  of  about  half  an 
hour,  in  which,  from  the  defective  tact  and  address  of  Colonel  C, 
no  person  of  the  party  but  himself  took  any  share,  we  made  our 
parting  salutations,  and  retired  from  the  audience-chamber,  which, 
as  I  again  traversed  it,  I  thought  was  on  a  par  with  a  ball-room 
in  a  second-rate  English  country  town.  On  proceeding  through 
the  large  anteroom,  we  found  the  company  listening  to  the  ad- 
dress of  their  spiritual  guide.  On  our  way  down  the  declivity 
from  the  citadel  we  passed  the  menagerie,  and  I  heard  the  lion 
growling  in  his  den.     I  thought  of  Mehemet  Ali." 

Cobden  had  another  interview  with  Mehemet  Ali  on  December 
26,  in  which  they  had  an  hour's  conversation  on  the  Pacha's  way 
of  managing  his  cotton  factories.  He  confesses  himself  to  have 
been  particularly  struck  with  the  Pacha's  readiness  in  replying 
and  reasoning,  with  his  easy  handling  of  his  2|  per  cents  and  20 
per  cents,  and  with  his  "  love  of  facts  and  quickness  of  calcula- 
tion." "  It  is  this  calculating  talent,  aided  by  higher  powers  of 
combination  and  reflection,  that  has  contributed  so  greatly  to- 
wards elevating  him  to  his  present  position ;  for  whatever  daring 
or  courage  he  may  have  shown  upon  emergencies,  it  is  notorious 
that  he  has  always  preferred  the  use  of  diplomacy  to  the  more 
open  tactics  of  the  sword." 


iET.32.]  TRAVELS   IN  WEST   ANB  EAST.  45 

Cairo,  Dec.  22d,  1836.  — "  Mehemet  Ali  is  pursuing  a  course 
of  avaricious  misrule,  which  would  have  torn  the  vitals  from  a 
country  less  prolific  than  this,  long  since.  As  it  is,  everything  is 
decaying  beneath  his  system  of  monopolies.  It  is  difficult  to 
understand  the  condition  of  things  in  Egypt  without  visiting  it. 
The  Pacha  has,  by  dint  of  force  and  fraud,  possessed  himself  of 
the  whole  of  the  property  of  the  country.  I  do  not  mean  that  he 
has  obtained  merely  the  rule  or  government,  but  he  owns  the 
whole  of  the  soil,  the  houses,  the  boats,  the  camels,  etc.  There  is 
something  quite  unique  in  finding  only  one  landowner  and  one 
merchant  in  a  country,  in  the  person  of  its  pacha !  He  has  been 
puffed  by  his  creatures  in  Europe  as  a  regenerator  and  a  reformer 
—  /  can  trace  in  him  only  a  rapacious  tyrant.  It  is  true  he  has, 
to  gratify  an  insatiate  ambition,  attempted  to  give  himself  a  Euro- 
pean fame,  by  importing  some  of  the  arts  of  civilized  countries 
into  Egypt ;  but  this  has  been  done,  not  to  benefit  his  people,  but 
to  exalt  himself.  His  cotton  factories  are  a  striking  instance  of 
this.  I  have  devoted  some  time  to  the  inspection  of  these  places, 
of  which  I  am  surprised  to  find  there  are  twenty-eight  in  the 
country,  altogether  presenting  a  waste  of  capital  and  industry  un- 
paralleled in  any  other  part  of  the  world.  Magnificent  buildings 
have  been  erected,  costly  machinery  brought  from  England  and 
France,  and  the  whole  after  a  few  years  presents  such  an  appear- 
ance of  dilapidation  and  mismanagement  that  to  persevere  in 
carrying  them  forwards  must  be  to  incur  fresh  ruin  every  year. 
At  first,  steam-engines  were  put  down  at  the  principal  mills ;  but 
these  were  soon  stopped,  and  bullock-wheels  were  substituted, 
which  are  now  in  use  at.  all  the  establishments  1  I  saw  them 
carding  with  engines  almost  toothless ;  the  spinning,  which  is  of 
low  numbers,  running  from  12  to  40,  is  of  the  worst  possible 
kind ;  and,  in  weaving,  the  lumps  and  knots  keep  the  poor  weaver 
in  constant  activity  cutting  and  patching  his  web.  There  is  one 
mill,  built  at  the  side  of  the  river,  which  presents  a  splendid  ap- 
pearance as  you  approach  from  Alexandria  ;  it  contains  the  finest 
room-full  of  Sharp  and  Eoberts's  looms  that  I  ever  saw.  The  engine 
of  this  does  not  work,  and  they  have  therefore  turned  these  power- 
looms  into  hand-looms,  and  are  making  cloth  that  could  not  be  sold 
at  any  price  in  Manchester.  All  this  waste  is  going  on  with  the  best 
raw  cotton,  which  ought  to  be  sold  with  us,  and  double  its  weiglit 
of  Surats  bought  for  the  manufacturer  of  such  low  fabrics.  This 
is  not  all  the  mischief,  for  the  very  hands  that  are  driven  into 
these  manufactures  are  torn  from  the  cultivation  of  the  soil,  which 
is  turned  into  desert  for  want  of  cultivation,  whilst  it  miglit  be 
the  most  fertile  in  the  world.  But  the  most  splendid  of  all  his 
buildings  is  the  print-works.  Think  of  a  couple  of  block  shops, 
each  nearly  a  hundred  yards  long  and  fifteen  feet  high ;  imagine 


46  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1836-37." 

a  croft  enclosed  with  solid  walls,  containing  nearly  fifty  acres,  and 
conceive  this  to  be  intersected  with  streams  of  water  in  all  direc- 
tions, and  with  taps  for  letting  on  the  water  at  any  particular 
place  ;  think  of  such  a  place,  compared  with  which  ours  or  the 
best  of  the  Lancashire  works  are  but  as  barns,  and  then  what  do  you 
say  when  I  tell  you  that  one  of  these  block  shops  contained  about 
fifteen  tables  at  work,  whilst  in  the  other  the  tables  were  all  piled 
np  in  one  corner,  and  the  only  occupants  of  it  were  a  couple  of 
carpet- weavers  trying  to  produce  a  hearth-rug !  All  this  is  not 
the  work  of  Mehemet  Ali.  The  miserable  adventurers  from  Eu- 
rope, who  have  come  here  to  act  the  parasites  of  such  a  blood- 
stained despot  —  they  are  partly  the  cause  of  the  evil.  But 
they  know  his  selfish  nature,  and  his  lust  of  fame,  and  this  is 
only  their  mode  of  deluding  the  one  and  pandering  to  the  other."  ^ 

On  the  19th  of  January  Cobden  left  Alexandria,  and  arrived 
at  Constantinople  on  the  1st  of  February :  — 

On  hoard  the  Sardinian  Brig,  La  Virtu,  in  the  Sea  of  Marmora, 
Jan.  29th,  1837.  —  "  On  the  24th  we  found  ourselves  becalmed 
under  the  island  of  Scio,  the  most  fertile  and  the  largest  of  the 
Archipelago.  In  the  evening  the  moon  rose,  and  diffused  over  the 
atmosphere,  not  merely  a  light,  but  a  blaze,  which  illuminated 
the  hills  and  vales  of  Scio,  and  shed  a  rosy  tint  over  every  object 
in  the  island.  The  sea  was  as  tranquil  as.  the  land,  and  everything 
seemed  to  whisper  security  and  repose.  How  different  was  the 
scene  on  this  very  island  twelve  years  ago,  when  the  Turks  burst 
in  upon  a  cultivated,  wealthy,  and  contented  population,  and 
spread  death  and  destruction  through  the  land,  changing  in  one 
short  day  this  paradise  of  domestic  happiness  into  a  theatre  of 
the  most  appalling  crimes.  I  must  recall  to  your  minds  the  par- 
ticulars of  this  dreadful  tragedy.  Scio  had  taken  no  part  in  the 
revolution  of  the  Greeks,  and  its  inhabitants,  who  were  industri- 
ous and  rich,  voluntarily  placed  hostages  of  their  chief  men  in 
the  hands  of  the  Turkish  Government,  as  a  proof  that  they  were 
not  disposed  to  rebel  against  their  rulers.  It  happened,  however, 
that  some  young  men  of  the  neighboring  islands  of  Samos  and 
Ipsara  landed  at  one  extremity  of  the  island,  and  there  planted 
the  standard  of  revolt,  which,  however,  was  not  followed  by  the 
Sciotes.  On  the  contrary,  they  protested  against  it ;  and,  as  they 
had  delivered  up  their  arms  as  a  proof  of  their  peaceful  intentions, 
they  could  do  no  more.  The  pretence,  however,  was  seized  upon 
by  the  Government  of  Constantinople,  and  the  island  was  doomed 
to  a  visit  from  the  Turkish  Admiral,  and  a  body  of  ruffianly  troops 
who  were  promised  a  free  license  of  blood  and  plunder. 

"  The  riches  of  the  island,  the  beauty  and  accomplishments  of 

1  To  Mr.  George  Foster,  from  Cairo,  December  22,  1836. 


^T.32.]  TRAVELS  IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  47 

the  females,  were  held  out  as  inducements  to  draw  all  the  ruffians 
of  the  capital  to  join  in  the  expedition  of  rapine  and  murder. 
The  situation  of  the  island,  too,  afforded  the  opportunity  of  pass- 
ing from  the  mainland  across  a  narrow  strait  of  about  seven  miles, 
and  thousands  of  the  miscreants  from  all  the  towns  of  the  coast 
of  Asia  Minor,  including  Smyrna,  flocked  to  the  scene  of  woe. 
ISTow  only  picture  to  yourselves  such  a  scene  as  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
supposing  it  to  be  one  third  more  populous  and  larger  in  circum- 
ference, and  then  imagine  that  its  inhabitants  in  the  midst  of  un- 
suspecting security  were  suddenly  burst  upon  by  20,000  of  the 
butchers,  porters,  thieves,  and  desperadoes  of  London,  Portsmouth, 
etcetera.  Imagine  these  for  three  days  in  unbridled  possession 
of  the  persons  and  property  of  every  soul  in  that  happy  island ; 
conceive  all  the  churches  filled  with  mangled  corpses,  the  rich 
proprietors  hanging  dead  at  their  own  house  doors,  the  ministers 
of  religion  cruelly  tortured  —  imagine  all  that  could  happen  from 
the  knives,  swords,  and  pistols  of  men  who  were  inured  to  blood, 
and  suppose  the  captivity  and  sufferings  of  every  young  female 
or  male,  who  were  without  exception  torn  away  and  sold  into 
captivity  ;  —  and  you  will  not  then  picture  a  quarter  part  of  the 
horrors  which  happened  at  the  massacre  of  Scio.  Of  nearly  100,000 
persons  on  the  island  in  the  month  of  May,  not  more  than  700 
were  left  alive  there  at  the  end  of  two  months  after.  Upwards 
of  40,000  young  persons '  of  both  sexes  were  sold  into  infamous 
slavery  throughout  all  the  Mahometan  cities  of  Europe  and  Asia, 
and  not  one  house  was  left  standing  except  those  of  the  European 
Consuls ! " 

Constantinople  J  February  14:th,  1837.  —  "Do  not  expect  a  long 
or  rhapsodical  letter  from  me,  for  I  am  at  the  moment  of  writing 
both  cold  and  cross.  A  copper  pan  of  charcoal  is  beside  me,  to 
which  I  cannot  apply  for  warmth,  because  it  gives  me  the  head- 
ache. There  is  a  hole  in  the  roof,  which  lets  down  a  current  of 
melted  snow,  which  trickles  over  my  bed  and  spatters  one  corner 
of  the  table  on  which  I  am  writing.  To  complete  the  agreeable 
position  of  the  writer,  he  is  lodging  in  a  house  where  the  good 
man  (albeit  a  tailor !)  has  a  child  of  every  age,  from  the  most  dis- 
agreeable and  annoying  of  all  ages  — eighteen  months  —  upwards 
to  ten.  My  landlady  is  a  bustling  little  Greek,  with  a  shrill  voice 
which  is  never  tired;  but  I  seldom  hear  it,  because,  as  her  children 
are  generally  in  full  chorus  during  the  whole  day,  it  is  only  when 
they  are  in  bed  and  she  takes  advantage  of  the  calm  to  scold  her 
husband,  that  her  solo  notes  are  distinguishable.  But  you  will 
say  that  I  have  very  little  occasion  to  spend  my  time  indoors, 
surrounded  as  I  am  by  the  beauties  of  Constantinople.  Alas  !  if 
I  sally  out,  the  streets  are  choked  with  snow  and  water ;  the 
thoroughfares,  which  are  never  clean,  are  now  a  thousand  times 


48  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1837. 

worse  than  Hanging  Ditch  or  Deansgate  in  the  middle  of  Decem- 
ber. If  one  walks  close  to  the  houses,  then  there  are  projecting 
windows  from  the  fronts  which  just  serve  to  pour  an  incessant 
stream  of  water  down  on  your  head  and  neck ;  if,  to  escape  drown- 
ing, he  goes  into  the  middle  of  the  street,  then  the  passenger  is 
up  to  his  knees  every  step,  and  sometimes  by  chance  he  plunges 
into  a  hole  of  mud  and  water  from  which  he  must  emerge  by  the 
charity  of  some  good  Turk  or  Christian.  Then,  to  complete  the  pic- 
ture of  misery,  every  man  or  woman  you  meet  dodges  you  in  order 
to  escape  contagion,  and  it  would  be  as  difficult  almost  in  Pera, 
the  Frank  quarter,  to  touch  a  person,  as  if  the  whole  population 
were  playing  a  game  of  prisoner's  base.  With  this  multitude  of 
miseries  to  encounter  without  and  within  doors,  I  have  seen  little 
here  to  amuse  or  gratify  me ;  and  if  it  were  not  for  the  extreme 
kindness  of  all  the  merchants  here,  with  almost  all  of  whom  I 
have  dined  or  visited  ;  and  if  I  had  not  had  other  objects  in  view 
than  merely  to  see  this  city  and  neighborhood,  I  should  scarcely 
have  stayed  a  week  at  Constantinople.  The  plague  has  been 
more  than  commonly  destructive  ;  various  accounts  give  from  50 
to  100,000  deaths,  and  I  have  little  doubt  that  more  than  one 
eighth  of  the  population  has  been  swept  away.  I  must,  however, 
tell  you  for  your  satisfaction  that  it  has  now  almost  disappeared, 
and  that  it  has  quite  lost  its  virulence.  Fortunately,  the  very 
day  of  my  arrival  a  north  wind  set  in,  and  brought  with  it  the 
snows  and  frosts  of  the  Black  Sea,  against  which  the  pestilence 
could  riot  exist.  Had  I  arrived  a  week  earlier,  the  weather  was 
as  mild  as  summer.  That  would  have  given  me  a  better  opportu- 
nity of  seeing  the  country,  but  not  with  the  same  security  from  the 
plague  as  at  present.  As  I  entered  the  harbor  of  Constantinople, 
the  country  was  free  from  snow,  and  therefore  I  saw  the  view  to 
pretty  good  advantage  considering  that  it  was  the  winter-time. 
It  is  too  fine,  too  magical,  for  description,  and  all  the  accounts 
that  you  read  of  it  do  not  do  justice  to  it." 

Smyrna,  Feb.  24,th,  1837.  —  "After  I  wrote  to  you  from  Con- 
stantinople, I  made  an  excursion  up  the  Bosphorus  to  see  the 
scenery,  which  all  concur  in  praising  as  the  most  beautiful  in 
Europe.  I  wish  I  had  seen  it  before  I  landed  in  Turkey  ;  —  the 
misery,  the  dirt,  the  plague,  and  all  the  other  disagreeables  of 
Constantinople,  haunted  me  even  in  the  quiet  and  solitude  of 
natural  beauties  which,  apart  from  such  associations,  are  certainly 
enough  to  excite  the  romantic  fervor  of  the  most  chilly-hearted. 
From  these  causes  I  am  afraid  I  have  not  done  justice  to  the 
scene  of  the  Bosphorus.  I  could  not  look  upon  the  palaces,  the 
kiosks,  and  wooden  houses  which  crowded  the  banks  of  the  beau- 
tiful channel  with  the  interest  which  they  might  have  imparted, 
if  I  had  not  known  the  poverty,  vice,  and  tyranny  of  their  posses- 


^T.33.]  TRAVELS  IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  49 

sors.  Must  I  confess  it  ?  I  think  the  Hudson  river  a  much 
more  beautiful  scene  than  the  Bosphorus.  But  let  the  scenes 
be  reversed  —  if  the  Bosphorus  were  in  the  United  States,  and 
the  Hudson  in  Turkey  —  and  I  should  consider  probably  the 
former  incomparably  the  most  beautiful;  so  much  are  we  the 
creatures  of  association."  ^ 

Smyrna,  Feb.  24th,  1837.  —  "In  the  steamer  which  brought 
me  from  Constantinople  to  this  place,  we  had  a  great  number  of 
passengers,  chiefly  Turks  :  there  were  a  few  Persians.  They  all 
rested  on  deck  during  the  whole  time.  For  their  convenience 
little  raised  platforms  were  placed  along  each  side  of  the  steamer, 
to  prevent  the  wet,  if  any  rain  fell,  reaching  their  beds.  Hereon 
they  spread  their  mats  and  arranged  their  cloaks,  and  it  was  amus- 
ing to  watch  each  drawing  forth  his  long  pipe,  and  preparing  with 
the  aid  of  a  bag  of  tobacco  to  sustain  the  fatigues  and  sufferings 
of  two  nights'  exposure  in  such  a  position.  These  Turks  are  the 
most  quiet  and  orderly  people  in  the  world  when  their  religious 
fanaticism  is  untouched,  in  which  case  they  are  at  once  changed 
into  the  most  sanguinary  savages  imaginable.  Some  of  our  pas- 
sengers were  people  of  good  quality,  with  servants  accompany- 
ing them,  and  they  slept  in  the  cabin ;  but  the  whole  of  the  day 
was  spent  in  reposing  upon  their  mats,  their  legs  tucked  under, 
and  their  long  pipes  in  their  mouths.  A  few  words  sometimes 
were  exchanged,  but  the  conversation  seemed  always  to  be  a  sec- 
ondary affair  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  pipe. 

"  I  found  great  amusement  in  walking  up  and  down  the  deck 
between  these  rows  of  quiet,  grave  Mussulmans,  whose  pictu- 
resque dresses  and  arms  of  various  kinds  afforded  me  constant 
interest ;  whilst  the  honest  Turks  felt  equal  amusement  in  rumi- 
nating over  their  pipes  upon  the  motives  which  could  cause  a 

1  In  the  pamphlet  on  England,  Ireland,  and  America,  Cobden  had  already- 
indulged  a  joyous  vision  of  what  Constantinople  might  become  under  the  genius 
of  a  free  government  : —  **  Constantinople,  outrivalling  New  York,  may  be  painted, 
with  a  million  of  free  citizens,  as  the  focus  of  all  the  trade  of  Eastern  Europe. 
Let  us  conjure  up  the  thousands  of  miles  of  railroads,  carrying  to  the  very  extremi- 
ties of  this  empire  —  not  the  sanguinary  satrap,  but  the  merchandise  and  the  busy 
traders  of  a  free  state  ;  conveying  —  not  the  firman  of  a  ferocious  Sultan,  armed 
with  death  to  the  trembling  slave,  but  the  millions  of  newspapers  and  letters, 
which  stimulate  the  enterprise  and  excite  the  patriotism  of  an  enlightened  people. 
Let  us  imagine  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Sea-  of  Marmora  swarming  with  steamboats, 
connecting  the  European  and  Asiatic  continents  by  hourly  departures  and  arrivals  ; 
or  issuing  from  the  Dardanelles,  to  reanimate  once  more  with  life  and  fertility  the 
hundred  islands  of  the  Archipelago  ;  or  conceive  the  rich  shores  of  the  Black  Sea 
in  the  power  of  the  New  Englander,  and  the  Danube  pouring  down  its  produce 
on  the  plains  of  Moldavia  and  Wallachia,  now  subject  to  the  plough  of  the  hardy* 
Kentuckian.  Let  us  picture  the  Carolinians,  the  Virginians,  and  the  Georgians 
transplanted  to  the  coasts  of  Asia  Minor,  and  behold  its  hundreds  of  cities  again 
bursting  from  the  tomb  of  ages,  to  recall  religion  and  civilization  to  the  spot  from 
whence  they  first  issued  forth  upon  the  world.  Alas  !  that  this  should  only  be 
an  illusion  of  the  fancy! " 

4 


50  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  '  [183?, 

Giaour  like  me  to  set  myself  the  task  of  walking  to  and  fro  on 
the  deck  for  nothing  that  they  could  understand,  unless  for  some 
religious  penance.  There  were  two  old  men  with  green  turbans, 
who  five  times  during  the  day  put  aside  their  pipes,  turning  to 
the  east,  and,  bowing  their  foreheads  to  their  feet,  uttered  with 
great  fervor  their  prayers.  All  this  passed  unnoticed  by  their  very 
next  neighbors  —  for  the  Turks  are  not  (what  nurses  say  of  chil- 
dren) arrived  at  the  age  for  taking  notice.  I  have  seen  all  sorts  of 
strange  scenes  happen  without  disturbing  the  dreaming  attention 
of  the  Turk.  Once  in  Cairo  I  was  looking  out  of  a  window,  be- 
neath which  three  smokers  were  sitting  upon  their  mats :  a  boy 
was  driving  an  ass  loaded  with  gravel  and  sand,  which  tripped 
just  as  it  was  passing  full  trot  by  the  place,  and  fell  close  to  the 
smokers,  upsetting  the  contents  of  the  panniers  upon  their  mats. 
The  boy  immediately  set  to  work  shovelling  up  the  sand  with  his 
hands,  and  scraping  it  as  well  as  he  could  from  amongst  their 
legs,  and  having  loaded  his  donkey,  he  cantered  away.  Not  a 
word  or  look  passed  between  him  and  the  smokers,  who  never 
moved  from  their  seats ;  and  two  hours  afterwards  I  passed  by 
them,  when  their  posture  was  precisely  the  same,  and  their  legs 
were  still  surrounded  by  the  remains  of  the  load  of  sand  1 " 

Bmyrna,  Feb.  24:th,  1837.  —  "The  house  in  which  I  am  staying 
is  a  large,  elegantly-furnished  on'e,  and  the  management  is  of  the 
solid  kind  which  Mr.  Ehoades'  establishment  used  to  be  charac- 
terized by.^  Old,  queer-looking  servants  trot  about  large  corri- 
dors ;  there  are  rooms  for  Monsieur,  snuggeries  for  Madame,  little 
retreats  for  visitors,  in  one  of  which  I  am  sitting,  writing ;  and  all 
have  good,  substantial  fires.  In  the  evening,  after  a  six  o'clock 
dinner,  parties  of  ladies  walk  in  without  ceremony ;  they  and  the 

young  gentlemen  of  the  house,  with  Madame  W (who  does 

not  speak  English),  sit  down  to  the  faro-table,  around  which  you 
soon  hear  a  babel  of  tongues,  English,  French,  Greek,  and  Italian, 

whilst  Mr.  W and  I  cause  over  Eussian  politics  or  political 

economy.  One  by  one  the  company  disappears,  after  taking  a  cup 
of  coffee  the  size  of  a  pigeon's  egg ;  and  so  noiseless  and  little 
ceremonious  are  their  appearances  and  disappearances,  that  a 
spectator  would  imagine  the  visitors  to  be  members  of  the  family, 
who  joined  each  other  from  different  parts  of  this  great  house  to 
an  evening's  amusement,  and  then  retired  again  for  the  night  to 
their  several  apartments.     This  is  visiting  as  it  should  he  done." 

The  following  extracts  from  his  journal  may  serve  to  show  the 
chief  topics  of  conversation  in  these  very  useful  visits  :  — 

Smyrna,  Feh.  M.  — "  At  Mr.  Crespin's,  in  a  conversation  upon 
the  trade  of  Turkey,  I  heard  that  350,000Z.  of  British  goods  are 

1  Mr.  Rhoades  was  the  hustand  of  one  of  his  aunts. 


^T.33.]  TRAVELS   IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  51 

now  lying  here  for  the  Persian  markets,  full  one  half  of  the  goods 
that  came  here  last  year  were  for  Persia.  The  Persian  trade  was 
formerly  carried  on  principally  from  Bombay,  or  through  the 
German   fairs.     At   present   these   currents   are  changed.      Mr. 

W says  that  he  has  been  at  Constantinople  from  seventeen 

to  eighteen  years,  and  he  recollects  when  the  first  vessel  cleared 
out  hence  for  England.  At  present  an  attempt  is  being  made  to 
impose  transit  duty  upon  the  Persian  silk  coming  through  Con- 
stantinople. The  trade  of  France  is  very  much  diminished; 
query  is  the  whole  demand  for  Turkey  gTeater  now  than  forty 
years  ago  ?  Smyrna  has  declined.  Wool  which  formerly  went 
to  France  now  goes  to  London,  linseed  is  now  exported  from 
Turkey." 

Feh.  4th.  —  "  Again  heavy  snows ;  confined  to  the  house  during 
the  day.  In  the  evening  I  accompanied  Mr.  Longworth  to  visit 
Mr.  Simmonds,  a  fine  old  gentleman  who  has  spent  thirty-five 
years  in  Turkey.  Like  almost  all  the  residents,  he  is  favorable 
to  the  Turks,  and  anxious  to  support  them  against  the  Eussians ; 
his  experiments  in  farming  the  high  lands  for  the  first  time,  toler- 
ably successful.  In  the  course  of  conversation  he  said  that  last 
year  the  government  sent  a  firman  to  Salonica,  and  intercepted 
the  grain  crops  which  were  ready  for  exportation,  ordering  them  to 
be  delivered  to  its  stores  at  ten  piastres  and  thirty  paras  the  kilo 
(about  a  bushel) ;  he  went  to  the  Seraskier  and  complained,  and 
advised  him  of  the  impolicy  of  such  a  step,  upon  which  he  prom- 
ised to  inquire  into  it.  The  government  then  sent  its  agents  to 
purchase  the  grain  at  eleven  or  twelve  piastres  from  the  farmers, 
who,  as  the  firman  had  not  been  withdrawn,  sold  it  eagerly.  A 
remonstrance,  however,  had  been  sent  to  the  government  by  the 
farmers  of  the  vicinity  of  the  capital,  declaring  that  they  could 

not  produce  their  grain  at  less  than  fifteen  piastres  the  kilo 

It  snowed  all  day.  I  remained  at  home,  and  read,  and  made  ex- 
tracts from  pamphlets,  etc." 

Feb.  5th.  —  "  In  the  morning  received  a  call  from  Mr.  Perkins. 
He  spoke  of  the  steamer  which  goes  in  about  three  days  to  Trebi- 
zond.  She  sails  every  fifteen  days,  and  is  usually  full  of  freight 
and  passengers ;  the  deck  passengers  pay  200  piastres,  or  about 
two  pounds,  cabin  passengers  ten  pounds.  She  carries  a  great 
number  of  porters,  who  come  to  Constantinople  for  work,  remain 
perhaps  for  six  months,  and  .then  return.  The  goods  sent  to 
Trebizond  are  forwarded  chiefly  to  Erzeroum,  from  whence  tliey 
are  distributed  throughout  Persia  and  the  surrounding  countries. 
Long-cloths  and  prints  are  the  principal  articles.  I  received  a 
visit  from  Dr.  Millingen.^     Says  Mr.  Urquhart  is  Scotch,  was 

^  The  well-known  physician  who  attended  Byron  in  his  last  illness,  and  who 
died  at  Constantinople  in  the  year  1878. 


52  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1837. 

educated  at  college,  went  out  to  the  aid  of  the  Greeks  at  their 
revolution,  was  severely  wounded  on  two  occasions,  afterwards 
travelled  for  some  years  in  Turkey,  discovered  '  the  municipalities, 
direct  taxation,  and  freedom  of  trade,'  which  were  the  secret  pre- 
servers of  Turkey.  Afterwards  he  went  to  England,  agitated  the 
press,  the  ministers,  and  the  king  in  favor  of  Turkey.  He  suc- 
ceeded in  making  every  newspaper  editor  and  reviewer  adopt  his 
views,  excepting  T<ait.  He  afterwards  wrote  his  Resources  of 
Turkey,  and  then  his  pamphlet.  He  was  patronized  by  Lord 
Ponsonby,  until  he  received  his  appointment  of  Secretary  of 
Legation,  when  his  active  and  personal  exertions  in  promoting 
his  own  peculiar  policy  produced  a  coolness  between  them.  He 
was  sent  out  by  the  English  Government  to  arrange  the  commer- 
cial treaty.  He,  the  ambassador,  and  the  consul  are  all  at  dag- 
gers drawn. 

"  There  are  no  associations  at  all  amongst  the  Turks,  such  as  are 
alluded  to  by  Urquhart,  under  the  name  of  Municipalities.  Those 
amongst  the  rayahs  liave  reference  to  the  regulation  of  their  own 
affairs  in  the  manner  of  the  English  Quakers  or  Methodists,  ex- 
cepting that  in  their  own  disputes  they  are  allowed  to  arbitrate 
without  appealing  to  Turkish  tribunals.  The  term  Municipali- 
ties is  misapplied,  and  only  calculated  to  deceive.  In  taxing  the 
rayahs,  the  amounts  levied  are  arbitrary,  and  the  only  privilege 
the  various  sects  possess  is  to  raise  the  money  in  the  best  way 
they  can,  as  a  body  amongst  themselves,  instead  of  the  Turkish 
authorities  coming  in  contact  with  individuals.  The  system  was 
no  doubt  originated  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  the  Turks  to  levy 
their  imposts  with  greater  facility.  The  Greeks,  Armenians, 
Jews,  etc.,  have  no  protection  from  these  imaginary  municipali- 
ties." 

Feb.  7th.  — "  In  the  morning  I  called  on  Mr.  Perkins,  who  is 
opposed  to  the  belief  in  the  regeneration  of  the  Turks.  The 
municipalities  are  aptly  ridiculed  in  the  novel  of  Anastasius  (by 
Hope),  where  the  Turk  sits  upon  the  ground  smoking  under  a 
tree,  and  leaves  the  people  of  the  village,  where  he  had  been  sent 
to  levy  contributions,  to  raise  the  money  in  the  best  way  they 
can.  Mr.  Ealli  attributes  the  evils  of  Turkey  to  the  radical  vices 
of  the  institutions,  to  the  monopolies,  and  above  all  to  the  depre- 
ciation of  the  standard  of  value  in  the  money.  The  trade  to 
Persia  through  Constantinople  has  increased  very  much,  but 
fluctuates  greatly.  One  year  it  has  been  probably  7  to  800,000/. ; 
at  another,  owing  to  a  glut,  not  half  of  that  amount.  But  he  is 
certain  that  the  trade  to  Persia,  etc.,  is  double  that  of  Constanti- 
nople for  Turkey.  In  the  evening  I  dined  with  Mr.  Thomasset, 
and  met  Mr.  Boudrey,  a  French  gentleman  of  intelligence.  He 
says  the  trade  direct  with  France  has  nearly  fallen  away  entirely 


iET.  33.]  TRAVELS   IN   WEST  AND  EAST.  53 

with  Turkey.  Belgian,  Swiss,  and  German  fabrics  have  superseded 
those  from  France.  No  regular  impost  is  levied  by  government 
all  through  its  dominions.;  every  pacha  is  to  raise  a  certain  sum, 
and  he  does  it  in  his  own  way.  Mustapha  Pacha,  of  Adrianople, 
when  ordered  to  send  a  certain  quantity  of  corn  to  government 
at  a  certain  price,  fixed  12  piastres  as  the  value,  because  the 
Europeans  would  give  it,  and  he  would  not  let  his  people  supply 
it  for  less.     He  is  an  exception,  and  popular." 

Fch.  Sth.  —  "  In  the  evening  I  dined  with  Mr.  Perkins  and  met 
Mr.  Webster,  &c.  I  was  told  that  no  fortunes  have  been  made 
by  British  merchants  at  Constantinople ;  that  the  business  is  so 
insecure,  and  that  they  are  beginning  to  wish  for  the  Eussians, 
more  money  being  made  by  the  residents  at  Odessa." 

Feb.  9th.  —  "  Mr.  Cartwright,  the  consul,  called.  In  speaking 
of  trade  to  Persia,  he  said  that,  previous  to  1790,  the  commerce 
went  by  way  of  Aleppo,  where  there  were  twenty-eight  English 
houses.  The  shipments  were  made  at  two  seasons  of  the  year,  in 
six  large  vessels  to  Scanderoon,  or  Ladikiyeh,  where  there  were 
large  warehouses  for  depots.  After  that  epoch  the  stream  of 
commerce  went  in  the  direction  of  Bombay  for  the  lower  division 
of  Persia,  and  by  way  of  Eussia  for  the  other  quarters  of  it.  The 
modern  route  by  Constantinople  is  not  more  than  fifteen  years 
old.  After  our  treaty  of  1820,  Turkey  began  its  system  of  im- 
posts upon  internal  commerce.  He  thinks  that  Mehemet  Ali  gave 
the  impulse  to  Mahmoud  in  many  of  his  reforms.  The  change 
is  only  in  the  dress  and  whitewashing  of  the  houses,  nothing 
fundamental  being  altered.  After  the  destruction  of  the  Janissa- 
ries, it  seems  that  he  has  been  quite  at  sea.  Kuined,  worn-out 
country." 

Feb.  11th.  —  "Mr.  Hanson  thinks  that  matters  are  worse  since 
the  time  of  the  Janissaries,  who  were  the  opposition  and  check 
of  the  government.  Then  the  people  were  only  plundered  and 
oppressed  by  the  Sultan  and  his  Grand  Vizier,  but  now  every  one 
of  the  pachas  about  the  person  of  the  Sultan  can,  by  obtaining 
firmans,  oppress  the  poor  agriculturalist.  Mr.  Perkins  thinks  the 
trade  for  Turkey  does  not,  in  Constantinople,  exceed  400,000/. ; 
he  was  told  that  Persia  took  in  one  year  1,200,000/.  The  trade 
to  Persia  is  new  for  the  last  few  years  by  this  route ;  he  thinks  it 
both  a  creation  and  a  transition ;  some  of  it  is  merely  removed 
from  Bombay.  A  ship  or  two  in  the  year  comes  from  Trieste, 
bringing  goods  from  the  German  fairs  to  the  Black  Sea.  In  the 
evening  I  dined  with  Mr.  Cartwright,  and  met  a  party  of  mer- 
chants. After  dinner  we  discussed  the  trading  prospects  of 
Turkey.  All  agreed  that  the  money  amount  of  the  consumption 
of  British  goods  is  diminishing,  and  that  the  trade  to  Persia  forms 
two  thirds  of  the  imports  into  Constantinople.     Mr.  Cartwright 


54  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1837. 

spoke  of  a  person  who,  in  Turkey,  told  him  he  had  bought  cloth 
for  his  coat  which  cost  him  only  half  as  much  as  he  would  have 
paid  for  it  in  England.  The  company  are  obliged  by  their  charter 
to  take  so  much  woollen  cloth,  which  they  sold  at  a  loss.  Eussia, 
Mr.  Cartwright  thinks,  will  again  let  the  trade  go  through  Georgia, 
by  which  route  it  formerly  reached  Persia ;  he  says  that,  after 
exhausting  the  fortunes  of  the  Armenians  and  others,  he,  the 
Sultan,  has  since  been  preying  upon  agriculture.  The  Exchange 
operations  of  the  government  are  merely  depreciating  his  currency, 
and  robbing  the  people  by  purchasing  the  non-interference  of  the 
foreign  merchant.  Eussia  is  continually  increasing  the  number 
of  her  subjects  by  naturalization.  The  rayahs,  who  form  the  most 
industrious  and  best,  besides  the  most  numerous  part  of  the  com- 
munity, would  certainly  benefit  by  a  Christian  government.  Mr. 
Cartwright  and  all  present  agreed  that  the  Turks  have  not  them- 
selves the  power  of  regeneration,  and  that,  unless  foreign  aid 
prevent  it,  they  must  fall  to  pieces  in  less  than  twenty  years. 
But  absolute  occupation  and  authority  must  be  possessed  by  the 
power  that  would  regenerate  Turkey.  Every  public  servant,  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest,  must  be  dismissed,  as  they  are  all 
corrupt.  A  Turk,  the  moment  he  enters  the  public  service,  is 
necessarily  a  rascal.  England  must,  if  she  inte7yoses  at  all,  take 
the  part  of  a  principal,  not  an  auxiliary^ 

From  Smyrna,  after  a  fortnight's  cruise  among  the  islands, 
Cobden  arrived  at  Athens,  March  19th,  where  the  political  and 
economic  circumstances  of  the  new  Hellenic  kingdom  interested 
him  more  keenly  than  the  renowned  monuments,  though  he  did 
not  fail  in  attention  to  them  also.  His  inquiries  filled  him,  as  is 
usually  the  case  with  travellers,  with  admiration  for  the  gifts  of 
the  Greek  people,  and  confidence  in  their  future.  The  perverse 
diplomacy  which  settled  the  limits  and  constitution  of  the  king- 
dom, he  viewed  with  a  contempt  which  the  course  of  Eastern 
events  in  the  forty  years  since  his  visit  has  fully  justified.  His 
hopes  for  the  future  of  the  Greeks  were  not  colored  by  the 
conventional  acceptance  of  the  glories  of  their  past.  He  was 
amazed  to  find  the  mighty  states  of  Attica  and  Sparta  within  an 
area  something  smaller  than  the  two  counties  of  Yorkshire  and 
Lancashire.  "  What  famous  puffers  those  old  Greeks  were  !  Half 
the  educated  world  in  Europe  is  now  devoting  more  thought  to 
the  ancient  affairs  of  these  Lilliputian  states,  the  squabbles 
of  their  tribes,  the  wars  of  their  villages,  the  geography  of  their 
rivulets  and  hillocks,  than  they  bestow  upon  the  modern  history 
of  the  South  and  North  Americas,  the  politics  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  charts  of  the  mighty  rivers  and  mountains  of  the 
new  world."  ^ 

1  To  F.  Cobden,  from  Smyrna,  March  3d,  1837. 


iET.33.]  TRAVELS   IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  55 

"  The  antiquities  of  Athens  may  be  cursorily  viewed  in  half  a 
day.  I  was  not  so  highly  impressed  with  the  merits  of  these 
masterpieces  from  reading  and  plates,  as  I  found  myself  to  be  on 
looking  at  the  actual  remains  of  those  monuments  and  temples, 
whose  ruins  crown  the  rocky  platform  of  the  Acropolis.  I  am 
satisfied  that  there  is  nothing  now  in  existence  which  for  beauty 
of  design,  masterly  workmanship,  and  choice  of  situation,  can 
compare  with  that  spectacle  of  grandeur  and  sublimity  which  the 
public  temples  of  ancient  Athens  presented  two  thousand  years 
ago.  What  a  genius  and  what  a  taste  had  those  people  !  And, 
mind,  the  genius  is  there  still.  All  the  best  deeds  of  ancient  times 
will  be  again  rivalled  by  the  Greeks  of  a  future  age.  Do  not 
believe  the  lying  and  slandering  accounts  which  the  dulness  of 
some  travellers,  the  envy  of  Levant  merchants,  and  the  Franks 
of  Constantinople,  utter  against  the  Greek  character.  The  raw 
material  of  all  that  is  noble,  brilliant,  refined,  and  glorious,  is  still 
latent  in  the  character  of  this  people  :  overlaid,  as  is  natural,  with 
the  cunning,  falsehood,  meanness,  and  other  vices  inherent  in  the 
spirits  of  slaves. 

"Do  not,  however,  fancy  that  I  am  predicting  the  revival  of 
Greek  greatness,  through  the  means  of  the  present  little  trumpery 
monarchy  of  that  name,  which  will  pass  away  like  other  bubbles 
blown  by  our  shallow  statesmen.  All  the  East  will  be  Greek, 
and  Constantinople,  no  matter  under  what  nominal  sovereignty  it 
may  fall,  will  by  the  force  of  the  indomitable  genius  of  the  Greeks 
become  in  fact  the  capital  of  that  people."  ^ 

Athens,  March  22.  —  "In  the  evening  at  Sir  E.  Lyons'  I  met 
Captain  Fisher,  who  spoke  of  the  haste  with  which  he  was  ordered 
to  sea  for  the  Levant.  He  left  his  own  son  behind  him,  whom  I 
met  in  Egypt,  going  to  India,  and  for  whom  he  had  not  dared 
to  wait  twenty-four  hours.  He  also  left  behind  two  guns.  He 
remarked  that  if  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  a  nation  were  at 
stake,  he  could  not  have  used  more  pressing  expedition  —  yet  all 
for  no  purpose  that  can  be  discovered !  The  Portland  is  carrying 
home  Count  Armansperg,  the  dismissed  Minister  of  Greece,  after 
bringing  the  King  and  Queen  of  Greece.^     I  saw  this  ship  at 

1  ToF.  Cobden,  Aiml  18,  1837. 

2  The  new  kingdom  was  intrusted  to  a  Regency  until  the  completion  of  King 
Otho's  twentieth  year  (June  1,  1835).  Count  Armansperg  Avas  President,  and  Von 
Maurer  was  his  principal  colleague.  The  pair  showed  that  Germans  are  capable  of 
rivalling  the  Greeks  themselves  in  hatred  and  intrigue.  ''Count  Armansperg,  as 
a  noble,  looked  down  on  Maurer  as  a  pedant  and  law  professor.  Maurer  sneered 
at  the  Count  as  an  idler,  fit  only  to  be  a  diplomatist  or  a  master  of  the  ceremonies." 
{Finlay,  vii.  12.)  When  King  Otho  returned  to  his  kingdom  in  the  Portland  (Feb., 
1837),  he  brought' with  him  his  young  bride,  Queen  Amelia,  and  Rudhart  to  be  his 
prime  minister.  Armansperg  was  recalled  to  Bavaria,  after  disastrous  failure  in  his 
administration.  Cobden  might  have  found  an  excellent  text  for  a  sermon  in  the 
childish  perversity  which  marked  Lord  Palmerston's  dealings  with  Greece  in  these 


66  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1837. 

Malta  on  my  way  out  to  Egypt  in  November.  She  was  fitted  up 
superbly  for  this  young  lady  and  gentleman,  and  their  maids 
of  honor  and  attendants.  She  went  to  Venice,  and  was  in  waiting 
for  the  royal  holiday  folks  for  two  months.  The  Madagascar, 
Capt.  Lyons,  brought  out  the  Regency  and  the  young  king.  The 
wives  of  the  members  of  the  Regency  quarrelled  even  on  the 
passage.  Some  time  ago  the  Medea  steamer  was  carrying  the  old 
King  of  Bavaria  and  his  son  to  the  islands  of  the  Archipelago  and 
the  coast  of  Asia  Minor.  We  are  general  carriers  for  erratic  roy- 
alty all  over  the  world ;  witness,  Donna  Maria  Miguel,  old  Ferdi- 
nand of  Naples,  the  King  of  Portugal,  and  their  precious  minions, 
were  the  choice  freights  of  our  ships  of  war.  When  will  this  folly 
have  an  end  ? " 

March  24.  —  "At  twelve  o'clock  at  night  [in  the  Piraeus  harbor] 
I  went  on  board  a  little  boat,  which  set  sail  immediately  for  Kala- 
maki  [in  the  Isthmus  of  Corinth].  It  was  a  clear,  fresh,  moonlight 
night,  and  a  favorable  breeze  soon  carried  us  from  among  the  ships 
in  the  harbor." 

March  25.  —  "  In  the  morning  we  were  half-way  across  the  gulf 
[the  Saronic  Gulf]  by  nine  o'clock.  :  .  .  At  eight  o'clock  in  the 
evening  we  arrived  at  Kalamaki.  On  the  beach  were  two  persons 
fishing  with  a  blazing  torch  and  spear.  We  entered  the  khan. 
A  few  phials  were  on  a  little  bar,  behind  which  sat  the  master. 
At  the  other  ends  of  the  room  were  raised  platforms  of  two  stages, 
reaching  to  the  ceiling,  or  rather  roof  (for  there  was  no  interior 
covering),  on  which  the  travellers  had  spread  mats,  and  on  some 
of  which  their  snoring  occupants  were  reposing  for  the  night, 
whilst  others  were  sitting  smoking  their  pipes.  An  ofiicer  in  the 
new  uniform,  and  another  in  the  Albanian  dress,  were  sitting  at  a 
little  table  taking  their  supper  with  their  fingers  from  the  same 
dish.  A  little  wood  fire,  was  blazing  at  one  side  of  the  room, 
upon  which  was  some  hot  water,  and  by  the  side  hung  coffee-pots 
of  every  size,  from  the  bigness  of  a  thimble  upwards.  A  large 
mortar  of  marble  stood  by  the  side  of  the  fire,  into  which  the 
coffee-grains  were  thrown  by  the  servant,  and  pounded  with  a 
pestle,  previous  to  being  boiled  for  his  customers.  This  custom 
of  pounding  instead  of  grinding  the  coffee  is,  I  believe,  universal 
in  the  East. 

"We  found  a  proprietor  of  a  boat  from  the  other  side  of  the 
isthmus,  and  engaged  with  him  to  take  us  to  Patras  for  twelve 
dollars.  We  hired  horses  and  set  off  across  the  isthmus,  a  dis- 
tance of  about  six  miles  to  Loutraki.  The  night  was  clear  and 
cool,  and  the  moon  at  nearly  its  full ;  the  scenery  of  the  moun- 

years,  from  his  stubborn  defence  of  Count  Armansperg  down  to  his  disputes  about 
court  etiquette,  and  his  employment  of  tlie  fleet  to  enforce  the  payment  of  a  trifling 
debt. 


^T.33.]  TRAVELS   IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  57 

tainous  and  rugged  neck  of  land  which  we  traversed,  and  of  the 
gulfs  on  each  side,  was  romantic.  At  Loutraki  we  saw  the  caves 
and  hollows  in  the  sides  of  the  mountains,  into  which  the  women 
and  children  were  thrust  for  concealment  during  the  war. 

"  We  got  on  board  at  midnight,  and  set  sail  down  the  Gulf  of 
Corinth  or  Lepanto  for  Patras.  Parnassus  on  our  right,  covered 
with  snow  —  a  cold  bed  for  the  muses  !  On  each  side  the  hills 
are  crowned  with  snow.  At  night  the  wind  was  foul  and  con- 
trary, and  our  boat  took  shelter  in  a  port  on  the  Eoumeliot  side 
of  the  gulf,  and,  on  the  morning  of  the  27th  of  March,  finding  that 
there  was  no  chance  of  getting  forward,  I  turned  to  the  opposite 
coast,  and  ran  for  a  little  village,  where  I  determined  to  hire 
horses,  and  push  forward  for  Patras  by  land.  We  came  to  anchor 
near  a  shop,  where  the  proprietor  sold  every  variety  of  petty  mer- 
chandise, such  as  wine,  paper,  candles,  nails,  &c.,  and  we  took 
some  coffee,  whilst  a  person  went  in  search  of  horses.  The  owner 
of  the  cattle  arrived  soon  afterwards,  to  make  a  bargain  of  a  dollar 
each  horse  for  Yostizza.  He  had  left  his  animals  concealed 
behind  a  bridge,  and,  as  soon  as  we  had  agreed  to  his  terms,  they 
were  produced.  This  cunning  is  the  result  of  a  long  experience 
of  Turkish  violence.  We  set  off  with  some  companions  for  Vos- 
tizza,  along  a  road  bordering  close  upon  the  gulf,  at  the  foot  of 
lofty  banks  or  hills  that  bound  either  side  of  the  water.  We 
passed  some  rich  little  valleys,  finely  cultivated  and  all  planted 
with  the  little  currant-trees.  Stopped  at  a  hut  in  the  middle  of 
the  day,  and  ate  some  black  bread  and  olives,  and  drank  some 
wine  and  water.  Again  set  forward  and  reached  Vostizza,  a  little 
seaport  situated  in  a  rich  and  well -cultivated  valley,  all  planted 
with  currants.  The  people  appeared  industriously  at  work.  On 
walking  out  into  the  town  of  Vostizza,  I  found  a  few  stone 
houses,  apparently  lately  erected,  and  of  public  utility.  Saw  a 
concourse  of  people  around  one  of  these,  in  which  there  was  to  be 
an  auction  of  public  lands. 

"  In  the  khan  or  lodgings  where  I  put  up,  there  was  nothing  to 
be  had  to  eat  but  eggs  and  caviare.  I  went  to  bed  early,  intend- 
ing to  be  called  at  three  o'clock,  but  could  not  sleep  from  the 
noise  of  Greeks,  who  were  laughing  and  dancing  in  the  next 
room.  When  I  had  by  dint  of  threats  and  vociferations  quieted 
these  fellows,  I  was  beset  by  such  multitudes  of  fleas  that  I 
could  not  obtain  a  moment's  repose.  I  therefore  arose  at  two 
o'clock,  and,  as  the  horses  soon  afterwards  appeared,  we  set  off  for 
Patras.  The  moon  was  bright  and  the  air  cool,  and  we  proceeded 
along  a  path  close  to  the  gulf;  passed  some  shepherds'  huts  in 
which  the  lights  were  burning,  and  the  dogs  gave  note  of  watch- 
fulness. As  daylight  appeared,  I  looked  anxiously  to  the  coast 
for  the  spectacle  of  a  sunrise  behind  the  mountains  of  Koumelia. 


58  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1837. 

The  first  rays  lighted  up  the  summits  of  Parnassus  and  the  other 
lofty  mountains,  whose  snowy  peaks  were  tinged  with  rosy  hues. 
By  degrees  the  sky  assumed  a  dark  dull  red  aspect,  above  the 
eastern  range  of  hills ;  this  shade  gradually  grew  more  lurid,  until 
little  by  little  the  horizon,  from  a  sombre  red,  assumed  a  dazzling 
appearance  of  fiery  brightness,  and  shortly  afterwards  the  sun 
flamed  above  the  mountainous  outline  over  the  gulf,  hills,  and 
valleys  around  us.  The  path  all  the  way  lay  through  a  thicket 
of  shrubs  of  a  thousand  kinds,  some  evergreen,  others  aromatic, 
and  the  whole  wearing  the  appearance  of  a  pleasure-ground  in 
England.  The  flowers,  too,  w^ere  fragTant,  and  the  whole  scene 
was  full  of  luxuriant  richness  and  beauty. 

"  We  stopped  at  a  hut  at  nine  o'clock  to  breakfast,  where  we 
found  a  poor  mud  cottage,  containing  a  few  coarse  articles  of  use 
for  sale,  as  well  as  some  bread  and  cheese  of  a  very  uninviting 
quality.  I  saw  Lepanto  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  gulf,  and 
soon  afterwards  the  Castles  of  Patras  and  Eoumelia,  which  guard 
the  entrance  of  the  Gulf  of  Lepanto.  At  half-past  twelve  o'clock 
we  entered  Patras  and  went  straightway  to  the  Consul's  house,  to 
learn  the  time  when  the  steamer  would  sail.  I  washed,  dressed, 
and  dined,  and  immediately  afterwards  went  on  board  the  Hermes 
steamer.  Captain  Blount,  which  arrived  from  Corfu.  We  set 
sail  at  four  o'clock.  In  the  evening,  at  ten,  we  called  off  Zante 
for  letters,  and  then  proceeded  with  favorable  breezes  for  Malta." 

At  Malta  Cobden  formed  some  very  decided  opinions  as  to  the 
policy  of  naval  administration,  as  illustrated  at  that  station. 

"  The  Malta  station  is  the  hot-bed  for  naval  patronage,  and  the 
increase  of  our  ships  of  war.  They  are  sent  to  the  Mediterranean 
for  five  years,  the  large  ships  are  for  six  or  eight  months  of  each 
year  anchored  in  Malta  harbor,  or  else  in  Vourla  or  Tenedos.  In 
the  summer,  for  the  space  of  four  or  five  months,  they  make  ex- 
cursions round  Sicily,  or  in  the  Archipelago  as  far  as  Smyrna  or 
Athens,  and  then  they  return  again  to  their  anchorage  to  spend 
the  winter  in  inactivity ;  the  officers  visiting  in  the  city,  or  per- 
haps enjoying  a  long  leave  of  absence,  whilst  the  men,  to  the 
number  of  six,  seven,  or  eight  hundred,  are  put  to  such  exercise 
or  employment  as  the  ingenuity  of  the  first  lieutenant  can  devise 
on  board  ship,  or  else  are  suffered  to  wander  on  shore  upon  oc- 
casional leaves  of  absence.  This  is  not  the  way  either  to  make 
good  sailors,  or  to  add  to  the  power  of  the  British  empire.  The 
expenses  are  borne  by  the  industry  of  the  productive  classes 
at  home.  The  wages  of  these  idlers  are  paid  out  of  the  taxes 
levied  upon  the  soap,  beer,  tobacco,  &c.,  consumed  by  the  peo- 
ple of  England.  But  what  a  prospect  of  future  expense  does 
this  state  of  things  hold  out  to  the  nation.  Every  large  ship 
contains  at  least  forty  or  fifty  quarter-deck  officers,  each  one  of 


iET.  33.]  TRAVELS   IN  WEST  AND  EAST.  59 

whom,  from  the  junior  supernumerary  midshipman  up  to  the 
first  lieutenant,  has  entered  the  service,  hoping  and  relying  that 
he  will  in  due  course  of  time,  either  by  means  of  personal  merit 
or  aided  by  the  influence  of  powerful  friends,  attain  to  the  com- 
mand of  a  ship  of  war,  and  all  these  will  press  their  claims  upon 
the  Admiralty  for  future  employment,  and  will  be  entitled  to 
hope,  as  they  grow  older,  that  their  emoluments,  rank,  and  pros- 
pects will  improve  every  year  with  their  increased  necessities. 
What  then  is  the  prospect  which  such  a  state  of  things  holds  out 
to  the  two  parties  concerned,  the  nation  on  the  one  hand,  and  its 
servants,  its  meritorious  servants,  on  the  other  ?  Unwise  to  en- 
courage this  increase  of  the  navy,  parents  might  find  a  much 
better  field  in  unsettled  regions  abroad."  ^ 

Leaving  Malta  on  April  4,  and  touching  at  Gibraltar,  he  there 
in  the  course  of  his  indefatigable  questioning  found  new  con- 
firmation of  his  opinions  from  competent  and  disinterested  in- 
formants. 

April  15,  1837.  —  "In  conversation  Waghorn  said  that  the 
admirals  are  all  too  old,  and  that  this  accounts  for  the  service 
being  less  efficient  now  than  heretofore ;  that  the  ships  are  put 
up  for  six  months  in  the  winter  months  at  Malta,  during  which 
there  is  of  course  no  exercise  in  seamanship  for  the  men.  Mr. 
Andrews  told  me  that  there  are  sometimes  twenty  ships  of  war 
lying  at  one  time  in  Malta.  The  mode  of  promotion  is  as  bad  or 
worse  now  than  under  the  Tories ;  there  are  captains  now  in  the 
command  of  ships  who  five  years  ago  had  not  passed  as  midship- 
men, and  there  are  hundreds  of  mates  pining  for  lieutenancies, 
who  have  passed  ten  years.  The  Treasury  presses  upon  the 
Admiralty  for  the  promotion  of  friends  and  dependents  of  the 
ministers  of  the  day,  and  thus  leaves  no  room  for  the  exercise  of 
justice  towards  the  old  and  deserving  officers.  This  was  more 
excusable  at  the  time  of  the  rotten  boroughs  than  now,  when  no 
such  interest  can  be  necessary.  There  are  thirty  or  forty  mid- 
shipmen in  one  of  the  first-raters ;  how  much  incipient  disap- 
pointment, poverty,  and  neglect !  The  Admiral  states  that  it  is 
enough  to  depress  his  spirits  to  see  so  many  young  men,  some  of 
them  twenty-five,  and  capable  of  commanding  the  best 'ships, 
filling  the  situation  of  boys  only.  Young  Baily  in  conversation 
spoke  of  the  way  in  which  the  Portland  was  fitted  up  for  the 
Queen  of  Greece  and  her  maids  of  honor,  twenty  guns  removed 
and  the  space  converted  into  elegant  rooms  draped  and  furnished 
for  the  king,  queen,  and  suite.  The  queen,  on  arriving  at  Athens, 
was  so  pleased  with  her  lodging  on  board,  that  she  sent  an  artist 
to  take  a  drawing  of  her  rooms.     The  vessel  waited  a  couple  of 

1  Journal^  March  31,  1837. 


60  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1835-36. 

months  at  Trieste  and  Venice,  for  the  royal  pair.  After  bringing 
them  and  their  ministers,  the  Portland  carried  back  Count  Arman- 
sperg  to  Malta."  ^ 

On  the  21st  of  April  Cobden  arrived  at  Falmouth,  after  an 
absence  of  six  months.  I  must  repeat  here  what  I  said  at  the 
beginning  of  these  extracts,  that  the  portions  of  his  letters  and 
journals  which  record  the  most  energetic  of  his  interests  and  his 
inquiries,  are  precisely  those  which  are  no  longer  worth  reprodu- 
cing, because  the  facts  of  commerce  and  of  politics,  which  formed 
the  most  serious  object  of  his  investigation,  have  undergone  such 
a  change  as  to  be  hardly  more  to  our  purpose  than  the  year's 
almanac.  When  we  come  to  the  journals  of  ten  years  later,  the 
reader  will  be  able  to  judge  the  spirit  and  method  with  which 
Cobden  travelled,  and  perhaps  to  learn  a  lesson  from  him  in  the 
objects  of  travel.  Meanwhile,  Cobden  could  hardly  have  spent  a 
more  profitable  holiday,  for  he  had  laid  up  a  great  stock  of  politi- 
cal information,  and  acquired  a  certain  living  familiarity  with  the 
circumstances  of  the  eastern  basin  of  the  Mediterranean  and  the 
Turkish  Government  —  then  as  now  the  centre  of  our  active 
diplomacy  —  and  with  the  real  working  of  those  principles  of 
national  policy  which  he  had  already  condemned  by  the  light  of 
native  common  sense  and  reflection. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  TWO  PAMPHLETS. 

It  is  not  at  the  first  glance  very  easy  to  associate  a  large  and 
theorizing  doctrine  of  human  civilization  with  the  name  of  one 
who  was  at  this  time  a  busy  dealer  in  printed  calicoes,  and  who 
almost  immediately  afterwards  became  the  most  active  of  political 
agitators.  There  may  seem  to  be  a  certain  incongruity  in  discuss- 
ing a  couple  of  pamphlets  by  a  Manchester  manufacturer,  as  if 
they  were  the  speculations  of  an  abstract  philosopher.  Yet  it  is 
no  strained  pretension  to  say  that  at  this  time  Cobden  was  fully 
possessed  by  the  philosophic  gift  of  feeling  about  society  as  a 
whole,  ^nd  thinking  about  the  problems  of  society  in  an  ordered 
connection  with  one  another.  He  had  definite  and  systematic 
ideas  of  the  way  in  which  men  ought  now  to  travel  in  search  of 
improvement ;  and  he  attached  new  meaning  and  more  compre- 
hensive purpose  to  national  life. 

1  Jourmal,  April  15. 


iET.  31-32.]  THE  TWO  P.AMPHLETS.  61 

The  agitations  of  the  great  Reform  Act  of  1832  had  stirred  up  ^ 
social  aspirations,  which  the  Liberal  Government  of  the  next  ten 
years  after  the  passing  of  the  Act  were  utterly  unable  to  satisfy. 
This  inability  arose  partly  from  their  own  political  ineptitude  and 
want  alike  of  conviction  and  courage ;  and  partly  from  the  fact 
that  many  of  these  aspirations  lay  wholly  outside  of  the  sphere  of 
any  government.  To  give  a  vote  to  all  ten-pound  householders, 
and  to  abolish  a  few  rotten  boroughs,  was  seen  to  carry  the  nation 
a  very  little  way  on  the  journey  for  which  it  had  girded  itself  up. 
The  party  which  had  carried  the  change  seemed  to  have  sunk 
to  the  rank  of  a  distracted  faction,  blind  to  the  demands  of  the  new 
time,  with  no  strong  and  common  doctrine,  with  no  national  aims, 
and  hardly  even  with  any  vigorous  personal  ambitions.  People 
suddenly  felt  that  the  interesting  thing  was  not  mechanism  but 
policy,  and  unfortunately  the  men  who  had  amended  the  mechanism 
were  in  policy  found  empty  and  without  resource.  The  result  of 
the  disappointment  was  such  a  degree  of  fresh  and  independent 
activity  among  all  the  better  minds  of  the  time,  that  the  succeed- 
ing generation,  say  from  1840  to  1870,  practically  lived  upon  the 
thought  and  sentiment  of  the  seven  or  eight  years  immediately 
preceding  the  close  of  the  Liberal  reign  in  1841.  It  was  during 
those  years  that  the  schools  were  formed,  and  the  principles  shaped, 
which  have  attracted  to  themselves  all  who  were  serious  enough  to 
feel  the  need  of  a  school  or  the  use  of  a  principle. 

If  the  change  in  institutions  which  had  taken  place  in  1832  had 
brought  forth  hardly  any  of  the  fruit,  either  bitter  or  sweet,  which 
friends  had  hoped  and  enemies  had  threatened,  it  was  no  wonder 
that  those  who  were  capable  of  a  large  earnestness  about  public 
things,  whether  civil  or  ecclesiastical,  turned  henceforth  from  the 
letter  of  institutions  to  their  spirit ;  from  their  form  and  outer 
framework  to  the  operative  force  within  ;  and  from  stereotyped 
catchwords  about  the  social  union  to  its  real  destination.  It  was 
now  the  day  of  ideals  in  every  camp.  The  general  restlessness 
was  as  intense  among  reflecting  Conservatives  as  among  reflecting 
Liberals ;  and  those  who  looked  to  the  past  agreed  with  those  who 
looked  to  the  future,  in  energetic  dissatisfaction  with  a  sterile 
present.  We  need  only  look  around  to  recognize  the  unity  of 
the  original  impulse  which  animated  men  who  dreaded  or  hated 
one  another ;  and  inspired  books  that  were  as  far  apart  as  a  hu- 
moristic  novel  and  a  treatise  on  the  Sacraments.  A  great  wave  of 
humanity,  of  benevolence,  of  desire  for  improvement,  —  a  great  ' 
wave  of  social  sentiment,  in  short,  —  poured  itself  among  all  who 
had  the  faculty  of  large  and  disinterested  thinking.  The  political 
spirit  was  abroad  in  its  most  comprehensive  sense,  the  desire  of 
strengthening  society  by  adapting  it  to  better  intellectual  ideals, 
and  enriching  it  from  new  resources  of  moral  power.     A  feeling 


62  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1835-36. 

for  social  regeneration,  under  what  its  apostles  conceived  to  be  a 
purer  spiritual  guidance,  penetrated  ecclesiastical  common-rooms 
no  less  than  it  penetrated  the  manufacturing  districts.  It  was  in 
1835  that  Dr.  Pusey  threw  himself  with  new  heartiness  into  the 
movement  at  Oxford,  that  Dr.  Newman  projected  Catenas  of 
Anglican  divines,  and  began  to  meditate  Tract  Mnety.  In  the 
opposite  quarter  of  the  horizon  Mr.  Mill  was  still  endeavoring,  in 
the  Westminster  Review,  to  put  a  new  life  into  Eadical  politics 
by  giving  a  more  free  and  genial  character  to  Eadical  speculations, 
and  —  a  far  more  important  task  —  was  composing  the  treatise 
which  gave  a  decisive  tone  to  English  ways  of  thinking  for  thirty 
years  afterwards.  Men  like  Arnold  and  like  Maurice  were  almost 
intoxicated  with  their  passion  for  making  citizenship  into  some- 
thing loftier  and  more  generous  than  the  old  strife  of  Blues  and 
Yellows  :  unfortunately  they  were  so  beset  with  prejudices  against 
what  they  confusedly  denounced  as  materialism  and  utilitarian- 
ism, that  they  turned  aside  from  the  open  ways  of  common  sense 
and  truth  to  fact,  to  nourish  themselves  on  vague  dreams  of  a 
church  which,  though  it  rested  on  the  great  mysteries  of  the  faith, 
yet  for  purposes  of  action  could  only  after  all  become  an  instru- 
ment for  the  secular  teaching  of  Adam  Smith  and  Bentham.  To 
the  fermentation  of  those  years  Carlyle  contributed  the  vehement 
apostrophes  of  Chartism  and  Past  and  Present,  glowing  with 
eloquent  contempt  for  the  aristocratic  philosophy  of  treadmills, 
gibbets,  and  thirty-nine  Acts  of  Parliament  "  for  the  shooting  of 
partridges  alone,"  but  showing  no  more  definite  way  for  national 
redemption  than  lay  through  the  too  vague  words  of  Education 
and  Emigration.  Finally,  in  the  same  decade,  the  early  novels  of 
Charles  Dickens  brought  into  vivid  prominence  among  the  objects 
of  popular  int-erest  such  types  of  social  outlawry  as  the  parish  ap- 
prentice, the  debtor  in  prison,  the  pauper  in  the  workhouse,  the 
criminal  by  profession,  and  all  the  rest  of  that  pitiful  gallery. 
Dickens  had  hardly  any  solution  beyond  a  mere  Christmas  phi- 
lanthropy, but  he  stirred  the  sense  of  humanity  in  his  readers,  and 
from  great  imaginative  writers  we  have  no  right  to  insist  upon 
more. 

Notwithstanding  their  wide  diversity  of  language  and  of  method, 
still  to  all  of  these  rival  schools  and  men  of  genius  the  ultimate 
problem  was  the  same.  With  all  of  them  the  aim  to  be  attained 
was  social  renovation.  Even  the  mystics  of  Anglo-Catholicism,  as 
I  have  said,  had  in  the  inmost  recesses  of  their  minds  a  clear  belief 
that  the  revival  of  sacramental  doctrine  and  the  assertion  of  apos- 
tolic succession  would  quicken  the  moral  life  of  the  nation,  and 
meet  social  needs  no  less  than  it  would  meet  spiritual  needs.  Ear 
apart  as  Cobden  stood  from  these  and  all  the  other  sections  of 
opinion  that  I  have  named,  yet  his  early  pamphlets  show  that  he 


^T.  31-32.]  THE   TWO   PAMPHLETS.  63 

discerned  as  keenly  as  any  of  them  that  the  hour  had  come  for 
developing  new  elements  in  public  life,  and  setting  up  a  new 
standard  of  public  action.  To  Cobden,  as  to  Arnold  or  to  Mill,  the 
real  meaning  of  his  activity  was,  in  a  more  or  less  formal  and  con- 
scious way,  the  hope  of  supplying  a  systematic  foundation  for 
higher  social  order,  and  the  wider  diffusion  of  a  better  kind  of 
well-being. 

He  had  none  of  the  pedantry  of  the  doctrinaire,  but  he  was  full 
of  the  intellectual  spirit.  Though  he  was  shortly  to  become  the 
leader  of  a  commercial  movement,  he  never  ceased  to  be  the 
preacher  of  a  philosophy  of  civilization ;  and  his  views  on  trade 
were  only  another  side  of  views  on  education  and  morality. 
Eealist  as  he  was,  yet  his  opinions  were  inspired  and  enriched  by 
the  genius  of  social  imagination. 

Some  readers  will  smile  when  I  say  that  no  teacher  of  that  day 
was  found  so  acceptable  or  so  inspiring  by  Cobden  as  George 
Combe.  He  had  read  Combe's  volume  before  he  wrote  his  pam- 
phlets, and  he  said  that  "  it  seemed  like  a  transcript  of  his  own 
familiar  thoughts."  ^  Few  emphatically  second-rate  men  have  done 
better  work  than  the  author  of  the  Constitution  of  Man.  That 
memorable  book,  whose  principles  have  now  in  some  shape  or 
other  become  the  accepted  commonplaces  of  all  rational  persons, 
was  a  startling  revelation  when  it  was  first  published  (1828), 
showing  men  that  their  bodily  systems  are  related  to  the  rest  of 
the  universe,  and  are  subject  to  general  and  inexorable  conditions ; 
that  health  of  mind  and  character  are  connected  with  states  of 
body ;  that  the  old  ignorant  or  ascetical  disregard  of  the  body  is 
hostile  both  to  happiness  and  mental  power  ;  and  that  health  is  a 
true  department  of  morality.  We  cannot  wonder  that  zealous 
men  were  found  to  bequeath  fortunes  for  the  dissemination  of 
that  wholesome  gospel,  that  it  was  circulated  by  scores  of  thou- 
sands of  copies,  and  that  it  was  seen  on  shelves  where  there  was 
nothing  else  save  the  Bible  and  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

It  is  easy  to  discern  the  attraction  which  teaching  so  fresh  and 
inspiriting  as  this  would  have  for  a  mind  like  Cobden's,  constitu- 
tionally eager  to  break  from  the  old  grooves  of  things,  alert  for 
every  sign  of  new  light  and  hope  in  the  sombre  sky  of  prejudice, 
and  confident  in  the  large  possibility  of  human  destiny.  To  show, 
as  Combe  showed,  that  the  character  and  motives  of  men  are  con- 
nected with  physical  predispositions,  was  to  bring  character  and 
motive  within  the  sphere  of  action,  because  we  may  in  that  case 
modify  them  by  attending  to  the  requirements  of  the  bodily 
organization.  A  boundless  field  is  thus  opened  for  the  influence 
of  social  institutions,  and  the   opportunities  of  beneficence  are 

1  Life  of  George  Combe,  ii.  11. 


64  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1835-36. 

without  limit.  There  is  another  side  on  which  Cobden  found 
Combe's  teaching  in  harnaony  with  the  impulses  of  his  own  tem- 
perament :  it  rests  upon  the  natural  soundness  of  the  human 
heart,  and  its  methods  are  those  of  mildness  and  lenity.  In  his 
intrepid  faith  in  the  perfectibility  of  man  and  society,  Cobden  is 
the  only  eminent  practical  statesman  that  this  country  has  ever 
possessed,  who  constantly  breathes  the  fine  spirit  of  that  French 
school  in  which  the  name  of  Turgot  is  the  most  illustrious. 

The  doctrine  of  the  pamphlets  has  its  avowed  source  in  the 
very  same  spirit  which  has  gradually  banished  violence,  harsh- 
ness, and  the  darker  shapes  of  repression  from  the  education  of 
the  young,  from  the  treatment  of  the  insane,  from  the  punish- 
ment of  criminals,  and  has  substituted  for  those  time-honored 
but  most  ineffective  processes,  a  rational  moderation  and  enlight- 
ened humanity,  the  force  of  lenient  and  considerate  example  and 
calm  self-possession.  Non-intervention  was  an  extension  of  the 
principle  which,  renouncing  appeals  through  brute  violence,  rests 
on  the  nobler  and  more  powerful  qualities  of  the  understanding 
and  the  moral  nature.  Cobden's  distinction  as  a  statesman  was 
not  that  he  accepted  and  applied  this  principle  in  a  general  way. 
Charlatans  and  marauders  accept  such  principles  in  that  way. 
His  merit  is  that  he  discerned  that  England,  at  any  rate,  whatever 
might  be  true  of  Germany,  France,  or  Eussia,  was  in  the  position 
where  the  present  adoption  of  this  new  spirit  of  policy  would 
exactly  coincide  with  all  her  best  and  largest  interests.  JSTow 
and  at  all  times  Cobden  was  far  too  shrewd  and  practical  in  his 
temper  to  suppose  that  unfamiliar  truths  will  shine  into  the 
mind  of  a  nation  by  their  own  light.  It  was  of  England  that  he 
thought,  and  for  England  that  he  wrote ;  and  what  he  did  was 
not  to  declaim  the  platitudes  of  rose-colored  morality,  but  by 
reference  to  the  hardest  facts  of  our  national  existence  and  inter- 
national relations,  to  show  that  not  only  the  moral  dignity,  but 
the  material  strength,  the  solid  interests,  the  real  power  of  the 
country,  alike  for  improvements  within  and  self-defence  without, 
demanded  the  abandonment  of  the  diplomatic  principles  of  a 
time  which  was  as  unenlightened  and  mischievous  on  many  sides 
of  its  foreign  policy,  as  everybody  knows  and  admits  it  to  have 
been  in  the  schoolroom,  in  the  hospital,  and  in  the  offices  of  the 
national  revenue. 

The  pamphlets  do  not  deal  with  the  universe,  but  with  this 
country.  Their  writer  has  been  labelled  a  cosmopolitan,  —  usu- 
ally by  those  who  in  the  same  breath,  by  a  violent  contradiction, 
reproached  him  for  preaching  a  gospel  of  national  selfishness  and 
isolation.  In  truth  Cobden  was  only  cosmopolitan  in  the  sense 
in  which  no  other  statesman  would  choose  to  deny  himself  to  be 
cosmopolitan  also ;   namely,  in  the    sense  of  aiming  at  a  policy 


iEx.  31-32.]  THE  TWO  PAMPHLETS.  65 

which,  in  benefiting  his  own  country,  should  benefit  all  the  rest  of 
the  world  at  the  same  time.  "  I  am  an  English  citizen,"  he 
would  have  said,  "  and  what  I  am  contending  for  is  that  England 
is  to-day  so  situated  in  every  particular  of  her  domestic  and  for- 
eign circumstances,  that  by  leaving  other  governments  to  settle 
their  own  business  and  fight  out  their  own  quarrels,  and  by 
attending  to  the  vast  and  difficult  affairs  of  her  own  enormous 
realm  and  the  condition  of  her  people,  she  will  not  only  be  setting 
the  world  an  example  of  noble  morality  which  no  other  nation  is 
so  happily  free  to  set,  but  she  will  be  following  the  very  course 
which  the  maintenance  of  her  own  greatness  most  imperatively 
commands.  It  is  precisely  because  Great  Britain  is  so  strong  in 
resources,  in  courage,  in  institutions,  in  geographical  position,  that 
she  can,  before  all  other  European  powers,  afford  to  be  moral,  and 
to  set  the  example  of  a  mighty  nation  walking  in  the  paths  of 
justice  and  peace." 

Cobden's  political  genius  perceived  this  great  mark  of  the  time, 
that,  in  his  own  words,  "  at  certain  periods  in  the  history  of  a 
nation,  it  becomes  necessary  to  review  its  principles  of  domestic 
policy,  for  the  purpose  of  adapting  the  government  to  the  chan- 
ging and  improving  condition  of  its  people."  Next,  "  it  must  be 
equally  the  part  of  a  wise  community  to  alter  the  maxims  by 
which  its  foreign  relations  have  in  times  past  been  regulated,  in 
conformity  with  the  changes  that  have  taken  place  over  the  entire 
globe."  1  Such  a  period  he  conceived  to  have  come  for  England 
in  that  generation,  and  it  had  come  to  lier  both  from  her  internal 
conditions,  and  from  the  nature  of  her  connections  with  the  other 
nations  of  the  globe.  The  thought  was  brought  to  him  not  by 
deliberate  philosophizing,  but  by  observation  and  the  process  of 
native  good  sense,  offering  a  fresh  and  open  access  to  things.  The  y 
cardinal  fact  that  struck  his  eye  was  the  great  population  that 
was  gathering  in  the  new  centres  of  industry  in  the  north  of 
England,  in  the  factories,  and  mines,  and  furnaces,  and  cyclopean 
foundries,  which  the  magic  of  steam  had  called  into  such  sudden 
and  marvellous  being. 

It  was  with  no  enthusiasm  that  he  reflected  on  this  transforma- 
tion that  had  overtaken  the  western  world,  and  in  his  first  pam- 
phlet he  anticipated  the  cry,  of  which  he  heard  more  than  enough 
all  through  his  life,  that  his  dream  was  to  convert  England  into  a 
vast  manufactory,  and  that  his  political  vision  was  directed  by 
tlie  interests  of  his  order.  "  Far  from  nourishing  any  such  esprit- 
de-corps,''  he  says  in  the  first  pamphlet,  "  our  predilections  lean 
altogether  in  an  opposite  direction.  We  were  born  and  bred  up 
amid  the  pastoral  charms  of  the  south  of  England,  and  we  con- 

1  Advertisement  to  Russia  (1836). 
5 


66  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.    .  [1835-36. 

fess  to  so  much  attachment  for  the  pursuits  of  our  forefathers, 
that,  had  we  the  casting  of  the  parts  of  all  the  actors  in  this 
world's  stage,  we  do  not  think  we  should  suffer  a  cotton-mill  or  a 
manufactory  to  have  a  place  in  it.  .  .  .  But  the  factory  system, 
which  sprang  from  the  discoveries  in  machinery,  has  been  adopted 
by  all  the  civilized  nations  in  the  world,  and  it  is  in  vain  for  us 
to  think  of  discountenancing  its  application  to  the  necessities  of 
this  country  ;  it  only  remains  for  us  to  mitigate,  as  far  as  possible, 
the  evils  that  are  perhaps  not  inseparably  connected  with  this 
novel  social  element." 

To  this  conception  of  the  new  problem  Cobden  always  kept 
very  close.  This  was  always  to  him  the  foundation  of  the  new 
order  of  things,  which  demanded  a  new  kind  of  statesmanship 
and  new  ideas  upon  national  policy.  It  is  true  that  Cobden  some- 
times slips  into  the  phrases  of  an  older  school,  about  the  rights  of 
man  and  natural  law,  but  such  lapses  into  the  dialect  of  a  revolu- 
tionary philosophy  were  very  rare,  and  they  were  accidents.  His 
whole  scheme  rested,  if  ever  any  scheme  did  so  rest,  upon  the 
wide  positive  base"  of  a  great  social  expediency.  To  political 
exclusion,  to  commercial  monopoly  and  restriction,  to  the  pre- 
ponderance of  a  territorial  aristocracy  in  the  legislature,  he 
steadfastly  opposed  the  contention  that  they  were  all  fatally  in- 
compatible with  an  industrial  system,  which  it  was  beyond  the 
power  of  any  statesman  or  any  order  in  the  country  to  choose 
between  accepting  and  casting  out. 

Fifty  years  before  this,  the  younger  Pitt,  when  he  said  that  any 
man  with  twenty  thousand  pounds  a  year  ought  to  be  made  a 
peer  if  he  wished,  had  recognized  the  necessity  of  admitting 
bankers  and  merchants  to  a  share  of  the  political  dignity  which 
had  hitherto  been  confined  to  the  great  families.  It  had  now 
ceased  to  be  a  question  of  a  few  peerages  more  or  less  for  Lom- 
bard Street  or  Cornhill.  Commercial  interests  no  less  than  ter- 
ritorial interests  were  now  overshadowed  by  industrial  interests ; 
the  new  difficulties,  the  new  problems,  the  new  perils,  all  sprang 
from  what  had  taken  place  since  William  Pitt's  time,  the  por- 
tentous expansion  of  our  industrial  system.  Between  the  date  of 
Waterloo  and  the  date  of  the  Eeform  Act,  the  power-looms  in 
Manchester  had  increased  from  two  thousand  to  eighty  thousand, 
and  the  population  of  Birmingham  had  grown  from  ninety  to  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand.  The  same  wonders  had  come  to 
pass  in  enormous  districts  over  the  land. 

Cobden  was  naturally  led  to  begin  his  survey  of  society,  as 
such  a  survey  is  always  begun  by  the  only  kind  of  historian  that 
is  worth  reading.  He  looked  to  wealth  and  its  distribution,  to 
material  well-being,  to  economic  resources,  to  their  administra- 
tion, to  the  varying  direction  and  relative  force  of  their  currents. 


iET.  31-32.]  THE   TWO   PAMPHLETS.  67 

It  was  here  that  he  found  the  key  to  the  stability  and  happiness 
of  a  nation,  in  the  sense  in  which  stability  and  happiness  are  the 
objects  of  its  statesmen.  He  declined  to  make  any  excuse  for  so 
frequently  resolving  questions  of  state  policy  into  matters  of 
pecuniary  calculation,  and  he  delighted  in  such  business-like 
statements  as  that  the  cost  of  the  Mediterranean  squadron  in 
proportion  to  the  amount  of  the  trade  which  it  was  professedly 
employed  to  protect,  was  as  though  a  merchant  should  find  that 
his  traveller's  expenses  for  escort  alone  were  to  amount  to  6s.  Sd.  , 
in  the  pound  on  his  sales.  He  pointed  to  the  examples  in  his- 
tory, where  some  of  the  greatest  and  moat  revolutionary  changes  v^ 
in  the  modern  world  had  a  fiscal  or  economic  origin.  And  if 
Cobden  had  on  his  visit  to  Athens  seen  Finlay,  he  might  have 
learnt  from  that  admirable  historian  the  same  lesson  on  a  still 
more  imposing  scale  in  the  ancient  world.  He  would  have  been 
told  that  even  so  momentous  an  event  in  the  annals  of  human 
civilization  as  the  disappearance  of  rural  slavery  in  Europe,  was 
less  due  to  moral  or  political  causes  than  to  such  a  decline  in  the 
value  of  the  products  of  slave-labor  as  left  no  profit  to  the  slave- 
owner. From  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  to  the  mortal  decay 
of  Spain,  and  the  ruin  of  the  ancient  monarchy  of  France,  history 
shows  that  Cobden  was  amply  justified  in  laying  down  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  affairs  of  a  nation  come  under  the  same  laws  of 
common  sense  and  homely  wisdom  which  govern  the  prosperity 
of  a  private  concern. 

In  material  well-being  he  maintained,  and  rightly  maintained, 
that  you  not  only  have  the  surest  foundation  for  a  solid  fabric  of 
morality  and  enlightenment  among  your  people,  but  in  the  case 
of  one  of  our  vast  and  populous  modern  societies  of  free  men,  the 
only  sure  bulwark  against  ceaseless  disorder  and  violent  convul- 
sion. It  was  not,  therefore,  from  the  side  of  emotional  sympathy 
that  Cobden  started,  but  from  that  positive  and  scientific  feeling 
for  good  Order  and  right  government  which  is  the  statesman's  v 
true  motive  and  deepest  passion.  The  sentimental  benevolence 
to  which  Victor  Hugo  and  Dickens  have  appealed  with  such 
power,  could  give  little  help  in  dealing  with  the  surging  uncon- 
trollable tides  of  industrial  and  economic  forces.  Charity,  it  is 
true,  had  been  an  accepted  auxiliary  in  the  thinly  peopled  socie- 
ties of  the  middle  ages  ;  but  for  the  great  populations  and  com- 
plex interests  of  the  western  world  in  modern  times,  it  is  seen 
that  prosperity  must  depend  on  policy  and  institutions,  and  not 
on  the  compassion  of  individuals. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  we  should  analyze  the  contents  of 
pamphlets  which  any  one  may  read  through  for  himself  in  a  few 
hours,  and  which  well  deserve  to  be  read  through  even  by  those 
who  expect  their  conclusions  to  be  most  repugnant.     The  pam- 


68  LIFB   OF  COBDEN.  [1835-36. 

phlet  on  England,  Ireland,  and  America  is  a  development  of  the 
following  thought :  —  A  nation  is  growing  up  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Atlantic  which  by  the  operation  of  various  causes,  duly 
enumerated  by  the   writer,  must  inevitably  at  no  distant  date 

Center  into  serious  competition  with  our  own  manufactures. 
Apart  from  the  natural  advantages  possessed  by  this  new  com- 
petitor, there  are  two  momentous  disadvantages  imposed  upon 
the  English   manufacturer,  which   tend   to   disable  him  in  the 

'-  struggle  with  his  formidable  rival.  These  two  disadvantages  are, 
lirst^  protection  and  the  restriction  of  commerce;  second,  the 
policy  of  intervention  in  European  feuds.  The  one  loads  us  with 
a  heavy  burden  of  taxation  and  debt;  the  other  aggravates  the 
burden  by  limiting  our  use  of  our  own  resources.  The  place  of 
Ireland  in  the  argument,  after  a  vivid  and  too  true  picture  of  the 
deplorable  condition  of  that  country,  is  to  illustrate,  from  the  most 
striking  example  within  the  writer's  own  knowledge,  ''the  ini- 
policy  and  injustice  of  the  statesm.en  who  have  averted  their 
faces  from  this  diseased  member  of  the  body  politic ;  and  at  tlie 
same  time  have  led  us,  thus  maimed,  into  the  midst  of  every 
conflict  that  has  occurred  on  the  continent  of  Europe."  In  fine, 
the  policy  of  intervention  ought  to  be  abandoned,  because  it  has 

^  created  and  continues  to  augment  the  debt,  which  shackles  us  in 
our  industrial  competition;  because  it  has  in  every  case  been 
either  mischievous  or  futile,  and  constantly  so  even  in  reference 
to  its  own  professed  ends ;  and  because  it  has  absorbed  energy 
and  resource  that  were  imperiously  demanded  by  every  consid- 
eration of  national  duty  for  the  improvement  of  the  backward 
and  neglected  portions  of  our  own  realms. 

In  the  second  pamphlet  the  same  principles  are  applied  to  the 
special  case  which  the  prejudice  of  the  time  made  urgent.  David 
Urquhart,  a  remarkable  man,  of  prodigious  activity,  and  with  a 
singular  genius  for  impressing  his  opinions  upon  all  sorts  of  men 
from  aristocratic  dandies  down  to  the  grinders  of  Sheffield  and 
the  cobblers  of  Stafford,  had  recently  published  an  appeal  to  Eng- 
land in  favor  of  Turkey.  He  had  furnished  the  ministers  with 
arguments  for  a  policy  to  which  they  leaned  by  the  instinct  of  old 
prejudice,  and  he  had  secured  all  the  editors  of  the  newspapers. 
Mr.  Urquhart's  book  was  the  immediate  provocation  for  Cobden's 
pamphlets.  In  the  second  of  them  the  author  dealt  with  Eussia. 
With  Kussia,  we  were  then,  as  twenty  years  later  and  forty  years 
later,  and,  as  perhaps  some  reader  of  the  next  generation  may 
write  on  the  margin  of  this  page,  possibly  sixty  years  later,  urged 
with  passionate  imprecations  to  go  to  war  in  defence  of  European 
law,  the  balance  of  power,  and  the  security  of  British  interests. 

Disclaiming  a  spirit  of  partiality  for  any  principle  of  the  for- 
eio-n  or  the  domestic  policy  of  the  Government  of  St.  Petersburg, 


^T.  31-32.]  THE   TWO   PAMPHLETS.  69 

Cobden  proceeded  to  examine  each  of  the  arguments  by  which  it 
was  then,  as  now,  the  fashion  to  defend  an  armed  interference  by 
England  between  Eussia  and  Turkey.  A  free  and  pointed  de- 
scription, first  of  Turkey,  and  next  of  Eussia,  and  a  contrast 
between  the  creation  of  St.  Petersburg  and  the  decline  of  Con- 
stantinople, lead  up  to  the  propositions  :  —  first,  that  the  advance 
of  Eussia  to  the  countries  which  the  Turk  once  wasted  by  hre 
and  sword,  and  still  wastes  by  the  more  deadly  processes  of  mis- 
government,  would  be  a  great  step  in- the  progress  of  improvement; 
second,  that  no  step  in  the  progress  of  improvement  and  the  ad- 
vance of  civilization  can  be  inimical  to  the  interests  or  the  welfare 
of  Great  Britain.  What  advantage  can  it  be  to  us,  a  commercial 
and  manufacturing  people,  that  countries  placed  in  the  healthiest 
latitudes,  and  blessed  with  the  finest  climate  in  the  world,  should 
be  retained  in  a  condition  which  hinders  their  inhabitants  from 
increasing  and  multiplying ;  from  extracting  a  wealth  from  the 
soil  which  would  enable  them  to  purchase  the  products  of  western 
lands  ;  and  so  from  changing  their  present  poverty-stricken  and 
plague-stricken  squalor,  for  the  manifold  enjoyment  of  their  share 
of  all  the  products  of  natural  resource  and  human  ingenuity.  As 
for  Eussia,  her  treatment  of  Poland  was  cruel  and  unjust,  but  let  us 
at  least  put  aside  the  cant  of  the  sentimental  declaimers  who, 
amid  a  cloud  of  phrases  about  ancient  freedom,  national  inde- 
pendence, and  glorious  republic,  obscure  the  fact  that  the  IPolish 
nation  meant  only  a  body  of  nobles.  About  nineteen  out  of  every 
twenty  of  the  inhabitants  were  serfs  without  a  single  civil  or 
political  right ;  one  in  twenty  was  a  noble  ;  and  the  Polish  nobles 
were  the  vainest,  most  selfish,  most  cruelly  intolerant,  most  vio- 
lently lawless  aristocracy  of  ancient  or  modern  times.  Let  us 
join  by  all  means  in  the  verdict  of  murder,  robbery,  treason,  and 
perjury  which  every  free  and  honest  nation  must  declare  against 
Eussia,  Prussia,  and  Austria  for  their  undissembled  wickedness  in 
the  partition.  Let  us  go  further,  and  admit  that  the  infamy  with 
which  Burke,  Sheridan,  and  Fox  labored  to  overwhelm  the  emis- 
saries of  British  violence  in  India,  was  justly  earned  at  the  very 
same  period  by  the  minions  of  Eussian  despotism  in  Poland. 
But  no  honest  man  who  takes  the  trouble  to  compare  the  condi- 
tion of  the  true  people  of  Poland  under  Eussia  with  their  condi- 
tion under  their  own  tyrannical  nobles  a  century  ago  —  and  here 
Cobden  gives  ample  means  of  comparison  —  will  deny  that  in 
material  prosperity  and  in  moral  order  of  life  the  advance  has 
been  at  least  as  great  as  in  any  other  portion  of  the  habitable 
globe.  Apart  from  these  historic  changes,  the  Eusso-maniac  ideas 
of  Eussian  power  are  demonstrably  absurd.  With  certain  slight 
modifications,  Cobden's  demonstration  of  their  absurdity  remains 
as  valid  now  as  it  was  forty  years*  ago. 


70  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1835-36. 

The  keen  and  vigorous  arguments  by  which  Cobden  attacked 
the  figment  of  the  balance  of  power  are  now  tacitly  accepted  by 
politicians  of  all  schools.  Even  the  most  eager  partisans  of  Eng- 
lish intervention  in  the  affairs  of  other  nations  now  feel  them- 
selves bound  to  show  as  plausibly  as  they  can,  that  intervention 
is  demanded  by  some  peril  to  the  interests  of  our  own  country. 
It  is  in  vain  that  authors  of  another  school  struggle  against  Cob- 
den's  position,  that  the  balance  of  power  is  not  a  fallacy  nor  an 
imposture,  but  a  chimera,  a  something  incomprehensible,  unde- 
scribed,  and  indescribable.  The  attempted  definitions  of  it  fall  to 
pieces  at  the  touch  of  historic  analysis.  If  we  find  the  smaller 
states  still  preserving  an  independent  existence,  it  is  owing,  Cob- 
den said,  not  to  the  watchful  guardianship  of  the  balancing  sys- 
tem, but  to  limits  set  by  the  nature  of  things  to  unduly  extended 
dominion  ;  not  only  to  physical  boundaries,  but  to  the  more  for- 
midable moral  impediments  to  the  invader, —  "unity  of  language, 
law,  custom,  and  traditions  ;  the  instinct  of  patriotism  and  free- 
dom ;  the  hereditary  rights  of  rulers  ;  and,  though  last,  not  least, 
that  homage  to  the  restraints  of  justice,  which  nations  and  public 
bodies  have  in  all  ages  avowed,  however  they  may  have  found 
excuses  for  evading  it." 

That  brilliant  writer,  the  historian  of  the  Crimean  War,  has 
described  in  a  well-known  passage  what  he  calls  the  great  Usage 
which  forms  the  safeguard  of  Europe.  This  great  Usage  is  the 
accepted  obligation  of  each  of  the  six  Powers  to  protect  the 
weak  against  the  strong.  But  in  the  same  page  a  limitation  is 
added,  which  takes  the  very  pith  and  marrow  out  of  this  moral 
and  chivalrous  Usage,  and  reduces  it  to  the  very  commonplace 
principle  that  nations  are  bound  to  take  care  of  themselves.  For, 
says  the  writer,  no  Power  is  practically  under  this  obligation,  un- 
less its  perception  of  the  wrong  that  has  been  done  is  reinforced 
by  a  sense  of  its  own  interests.^  Then  it  is  the  self-interest  of 
each  nation  which  is  the  decisive  element  in  every  case  of  inter- 
vention, and  not  a  general  doctrine  about  the  balance  of  power,  or 
an  alleged  common  usage  of  protecting  the  weak  against  the  strong  ? 
But  that  is  exactly  what  Cobden  started  from.  His  premise  was  that 
"  no  government  has  the  right  to  plunge  its  people  into  hostilities, 
except  in  defence  of  their  own  honor  and  interests."  There  would 
seem  then  to  be  no  difference  of  principle  between  the  military 
and  the  commercial  schools  of  foreign  policy.  The  trader  from 
Manchester  and  the  soldier  from  Aldershot  or  Woolwich,  without 
touching  the  insoluble,  because  only  half  intelligible,  problem  of 
the  balance  of  power,  may  agree  to  discuss  the  propriety  of  a 
given  war   on  the  solid  ground  of  national  self-interest.     Each 

1  Kinfflake,  vol.  i.  ch.  ii. 


.Et.  31-32.]  THE   TWO   PAMPHLETS.  71 

will  be  affected  by  professional  bias,  so  that  one  of  them  will  be 
apt  to  believe  that  our  self-interest  is  touched  at  a  point  which 
the  other  will  consider  too  remote  to  concern  us ;  but  neither  can 
claim  any  advantage  over  the  other  as  the  disinterested  champion 
of  public  law  and  the  rights  of  Europe.  If  there  is  a  difference 
deeper  than  this,  it  must  be  that  the  soldier  or  the  diplomatist  of 
the  old  school  has  really  in  his  mind  a  set  of  opinions  as  to  the 
ends  for  which  a  nation  exists,  and  as  to  the  relations  of  class- 
interests  to  one  another,  of  such  a  color  that  no  serious  politician 
in  modern  times  would  venture  openly  to  avow  them. 

If  the  two  theories  of  the  duty  of  a  nation  in  regard  to  war  are 
examined  in  this  way,  we  see  how  unreasonable  it  is  that  Cob- 
den's  theory  of  non-intervention  should  be  called  selfish  by  those 
who  would  be  ashamed  to  base  an  opposite  policy  on  anything 
else  than  selfishness.  "Our  desire,"  Cobden  said,  "is  to  see  Po- 
land happy,  Turkey  civilized,  and  Kussia  conscientious  and  free : 
it  is  still  more  our  wish  that  these  ameliorations  should  be  be- 
stowed by  the  hands  of  Britain  upon  her  less  instructed  neigh- 
bors :  so  far  the  great  majority  of  our  opponents  and  ourselves  are 
agreed.  How  to  accomplish  this  beneficent  purpose,  is  the  ques- 
tion whereon  we  differ."  They  would  resort,  as  Washingtoii 
Irving  said  in  a  pleasant  satire  on  us,  to  the  cudgel,  to  promote 
the  good  of  their  neighbors  and  the  peace  and  happiness  of  the 
world.  There  is  one  unanswerable  objection  to  this,  Cobden  an- 
swered :  experience  is  against  it ;  it  has  been  tried  for  hundreds 
of  years,  and  has  failed.  He  proposed  to  arrive  at  the  same  end 
by  means  of  our  national  example,  by  remaining  at  peace, 
vigorously  pursuing  reforms  and  improvements,  and  so  present- 
ing that  spectacle  of  wealth,  prosperity,  power,  and  invincible 
stability,  which  reward  an  era  of  peace  wisely  and  diligently 
used.  Your  method,  he  said,  cannot  be  right,  because  it  assumes 
that  you  are  at  all  times  able  to  judge  what  will  be  good  for  others 
and  the  world  —  which  you  are  not.  And  even  if  your  judgment 
were  infallible,  the  method  would  be  equally  wrong,  for  you  have 
no  jurisdiction  over  other  states  which  authorizes  you  to  do  them 
good  by  force  of  arms. 

The  source  of  these  arguments  lay  in  three  convictions.  First, 
the  government  of  England  must  always  have  its  hands  full,  in 
attending  to  its  domestic  business.  Second,  it  can  seldom  be 
sure  which  party  is  in  the  right  in  a  foreign  quarrel,  and  very 
seldom  indeed  be  sure  that  the  constituencies,  ignorant  and  excit- 
able as  they  are,  will  discern  the  true  answer  to  that  perplexing 
question.  Finally,  the  government  which  keeps  most  close  to 
morality  in  its  political  dealings  will  find  itself  in  the  long-run 
to  have  kept  most  close  to  the  nature  of  things,  and  to  that 
success  which  rewards  conformity  to  the  nature  of  things.     It 


72  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1835-36. 

followed  from  such  reasoning  as  this  that  the  author  of  the  pam- 
phlets denounced  by  anticipation  the  policy  of  compelling  the 
Chinese  by  ships  of  war  to  open  more  ports  to  our  vessels.  Why, 
he  asked  in  just  scorn,  should  not  the  ships  of  war  on  their  way 
out  compel  the  French  to  transfer  the  trade  of  Marseilles  to 
Havre,  and  thus  save  us  the  carriage  of  their  wines  through  the 
Straits  of  Gibraltar  ?  Where  is  the  moral  difference  ?  And  as  to 
Gibraltar  itself,  he  contended,  that  though  the  retention  of  con- 
quered colonies  may  be  regarded  with  some  complacency,  because 
they  are  reprisals  for  previous  depredations  by  their  parent  states, 
yet  England  for  fifty  years  at  Gibraltar  is  a  spectacle  of  brute 
violence,  unmitigated  by  any  such  excuses.  "  Upon  no  principle 
of  morality,"  he  went  on,  "  can  this  unique  outrage  upon  the  in- 
tegrity of  an  ancient,  powerful,  and  renowned  nation  be  justified  ; 
the  example,  if  imitated,  instead  of  being  shunned  universally, 
would  throw  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  into  barbarous  anarchy." 
Here  as  everywhere  else  we  see  how  wrong  is  the  begetter  of 
wrong,  for  if  England  had  not  possessed  Gibraltar,  she  would  not 
have  been  tempted  to  pursue  that  turbulent  policy  in  the  Medi- 
terranean, which  is  still  likely  one  day  to  cost  her  dear.^ 

Again,  the  immoral  method  has  failed.  Why  not  try  now 
whether  commerce  will  not  succeed  better  than  war,  in  regener- 
ating and  uniting  the  nations  whom  you  would  fain  improve  ? 
Let  governments  have  as  little  to  do  with  one  another  as  possible, 
and  let  people  begin  to  have  as  much  to  do  with  one  another  as 
possible.  -  Of  how  many  cases  of  intervention  by  England  does 
every  Englishman  now  not  admit  that  they  were  monstrous  and 
inexcusable  blunders,  and  that  if  we  had  pursued  the  alterna- 
tive method  of  doing  the  work  of  government  well  at  home  and 
among  our  dependencies,  improving  our  people,  lightening  the 
burdens  of  commerce  and  manufactures,  husbanding  wealth,  we 
should  have  augmented  our  own  material  power,  for  which  great 
national  wealth  is  only  another  word ;  and  we  should  have  taught 
to  the  governments  that,  had  been  exhausting  and  impoverishing 
themselves  in  war,  the  great  lesson  that  the  way  to  give  con- 
tent, enlightenment,  and  civil  virtues  to  your  people,  and  a  solid 
strength  to  their  government,  is  to  give  them  peace.  It  is  thus, 
Cobden  urged,  that  the  virtues  of  nations  operate  both  by  ex- 
ample and  precept ;  and  such  is  the  power  and  rank  they  confer, 
that  in  the  end  "  states  will  all  turn  moralists  in  self-defence." 

1  It  is  perhaps  not  out  of  place  to  mention  that,  several  years  ago,  the  present 
writer  once  asked  Mr.  Mill's  opinion  on  the  question  of  the  possession  of  Gibraltar. 
His  answer  was  that  the  really  desirable  thing  in  the  case  of  strong  places  com- 
manding the  entrance  to  close  seas  is  that  they  should  be  in  the  hands  of  a  Euro- 
pean League.  Meanwhile,  as  the  state  of  international  morality  is  not  ripe  for 
such  a  League,  England  is  perhaps  of  all  nations  least  likely  to  abuse  the  posses- 
sion of  a  strong  place  of  that  kind. 


iET.  31-32.]  THE  TWO  PAMPHLETS.  73 

These  most  admirable  pages  were  no  mere  rhetoric.  They 
represented  no  abstract  preference,  but  a  concrete  necessity.  The 
writer  was  able  to  point  to  a  nation  whose  example  of  pacific 
industry,  wise  care  of  the  education  of  her  young,  and  abstinence 
from  such  infatuated  intervention  as  ours  in  the  affairs  of  others, 
would,  as  he  warned  us,  one  day  turn  us  into  moralists  in  self- 
defence,  as  one  day  it  assuredly  will.  It  is  from  the  peaceful 
nation  in  the  west,  and  not  from  the  military  nations  of  the  east, 
that  danger  to  our  strength  will  come.  "  In  that  portentous  truth, 
The  Americas  are  free,  teeming  as  it  does  with  future  change, 
there  is  nothing  that  mo're  nearly  affects  our  destiny  than  the 
total  revolution  which  it  dictates  to  the  statesmen  of  Great  Brit- 
ain in  the  commercial,  colonial,  and  foreign  policy  of  our  Govern- 
ment. America  is  once  more  the  theatre  upon  which  nations  are 
contending  for  mastery;  it  is  not,  however,  a  struggle  for  con- 
quest, in  which  the  victor  will  acquire  territorial  domain  —  the 
tight  is  for  commercial  supremacy,  and  will  be  won  by  the  cheap- 
est." ^  Yet  in  the  very  year  in  which  Cobden  thus  predicted  the 
competition  of  America,  and  warned  the  English  Government  to 
prepare  for  it  by  husbanding  the  wealth  of  the  country  and  edu- 
cating its  people,  the  same  assembly  which  was  with  the  utmost 
difficulty  persuaded  to  grant  ten  thousand  pounds  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  normal  schools,  spent  actually  fifty  times  as  much  in 
interfering  in  the  private  quarrels  of  two  equally  brutal  dynastic 
factions  in  Spain.  Our  great  case  of  intervention,  between  the 
rupture  of  the  peace  of  Amiens  and  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  had 
left  a  deep  and  lasting  excitability  in  the  minds  of  Englishmen. 
They  felt  that  if  anything  were  going  wrong  in  any  part  of  the 
world,  it  must  be  owing  to  a  default  of  duty  in  the  British  Gov- 
ernment. One  writer,  for  instance,  drew  up  a  serious  indictment 
against  the  Whigs  in  1834,  on  the  ground  that  they  had  only 

1  "Looking  to  the  natural  endowments  of  the  North  American  continent  —  as 
superior  to  P^urope  as  the  latter  is  to  Africa  —  with  an  almost  immeasurable  extent 
of  river  navigation  —  its  boundless  expanse  of  the  most  fertile  soil  in  the  world, 
and  its  inexhaustible  mines  of  coal,  iron,  lead,  &c. :  —  looking  at  these,  and  remem- 
bering the  quality  and  position  of  a  people  universally  instructed  and  perfectly  free, 
and  possessing,  as  a  consequence  of  these,  a  new-born  energy  and  vitality  very  far 
surpassing  the  character  of  any  nation  of  the  old  world  —  the  writer  reiterates  the 
moral  of  his  former  work,  by  declaring  his  conviction  that  it  is  from  the  west, 
rather  than  from  the  east,  that  danger  to  the  supremacy  of  Great  Britain  is  to  be 
apprehended ;  —  that  it  is  from  the  silent  and  peaceful  rivalry  of  American  com- 
merce, the  growth  of  its  manufactures,  its  rapid  progress  in  internal  improvements, 
the  superior  education  of  its  people,  and  their  economical  and  pacific  government 
—  that  it  is  from  these,  and  not  from  the  barbarous  policy  or  the  impoverishing 
armaments  of  Russia,  that  the  grandeur  of  our  commercial  and  national  prosperity 
is  endangered.  And  the  ivriter  stakes  his  reputation  upon  the  prediction,  that,  in 
less  than  twenty  years,  this  will  he  the  sentiment  of  the  people  of  England  generally  ; 
and  that  tJie  same  conviction  will  be  forced  upon  the  Government  of  the  country."  If 
Cobden  had  allowed  fifty  years,  instead  of  twenty,  for  the  fulfilment  of  his  predic- 
tion, he  would  perhaps  have  been  safe. 


74  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1835-36. 

passed  a  Eeform  Bill  and  a  Poor  Law  Bill  at  home,  while  abroad 
the  Dutch  question  was  undecided ;  the  French  were  still  at  An- 
cona ;  Don  Carlos  was  fighting  in  Spain ;  Don  Miguel  was  pre- 
paring for  a  new  conflict  in  Portugal ;  Turkey  and  Egypt  were  at 
daggers  drawn ;  Switzerland  was  quarrelling  about  Italian  refu- 
gees ;  Frankfort  was  occupied  by  Prussian  troops,  in  violation  of 
the  treaty  of  Vienna ;  Algiers  was  being  made  a  French  colony, 
in  violation  of  French  promises  made  in  1829  ;  ten  thousand  Pol- 
ish nobles  were  still  proscribed  and  wandering  all  over  Europe ; 
French  gaols  were  full  of  political  offenders.  This  pretty  list  of 
wrongs  it  was  taken  for  granted  that  an  English  ministry  and 
English  armies  should  make  it  their  first  business  to  set  right. 

\^.  As  Cobden  said,  if  such  ideas  prevailed,  the  Whig  government 
w^ould  leave  Providence  nothing  to  attend  to.  Yet  this  was  only 
the  redudio  ad  absurdum  of  that  excitability  about  foreign  affairs 
w^hich  the  long  war  had  left  behind.  The  vulgar  kind  of  patri- 
otic sentiment  leads  its  professors  to  exult  in  military  interven- 
tions even  so  indescribably  foolish  as  this.  What  Cobden  sought 
was  to  nourish  that  nobler  and  more  substantial  kind  of  patriot- 
ism, which  takes  a  pride  in  the  virtue  and  enlightenment  of  our 
own  citizens,  in  the  wisdom  and  success  of  our  institutions,  in 
•  the  beneficence  of  our  dealings  with  less  advanced  possessions, 
and  in  the  lofty  justice  and  independence  of  our  attitude  to  other 
nations. 

No  one  claims  for  Cobden  that  he  was  the  first  statesman  who 
had  dreamed  the  dream  and  seen  the  vision  of  a  great  pacification. 
Everybody  has  heard  of  the  Grand  Design  of  Henry  the  Fourth 
of  France,  with  its  final  adjustment  of  European  alliances,  and  its 
august  Senate  of  the  Christian  Republic.  In  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, so  rich  as  it  was  in  great  humane  ideas,  we  are  not  surprised 
to  find  more  than  one  thinker  and  more  than  one  statesman 
enamored  of  the  policy  of  peaceful  industry,  from  the  Abbe  de 
Saint  Pierre,  who  denounced  Lewis  XIV.  for  seeking  aggrandize- 
ment abroad  while  destroying  prosperity  at  home,  down  to  Kant, 
who  wrote  an  essay  on  perpetual  peace;  and  to  the  French 
Encyclopedists,  who  were  a  standing  peace  party  down  to  the 
outbreak  of  the  Revolution.     Apart  from  these  Utopias  of  a  too 

V  hopeful  philosophy,  there  is  one  practical  statesman  whom  the 
historian  of  political  opinion  in  England  may  justly  treat  as  a 
precursor  of  Cobden's  school.  This  is  Lord  Shelburne,  the  politi- 
cal instructor  of  the  younger  Pitt.  He  was  the  first  powerful 
actor  in  our  national  affairs,  in  whom  the  great  school  of  the 
Economists  found  a  sincere  disciple.  It  was  to  Morellet,  the 
writer  in  the  Encyclopaedia  and  the  friend  of  Turgot,  rather  even 
than  to  Adam  Smith  and  Tucker,  that  Shelburne  professed  to  owe 
those  views  on  peace  and  international  relations  which  appeared 


JEx.  31-32.]  THE   TWO   PAMPHLETS.  75 

in  the  negotiations  of  his  government  with  France  after  the  war 
with  the  American  colonies,  and  which,  alas,  after  a  deplorable 
interval  of  half  a  century,  the  next  person  to  enforce  as  the  foun- 
dation of  our  political  system,  was  the  author  of  the  two  Man- 
chester pamphlets.  In  the  speech  which  closed  his  career  as  a 
minister  (1783),  Shelburne  had  denounced  monopoly  as  always 
unwise,  but  for  no  nation  under  heaven  so  unwise  as  for  England. 
"With  more  industry,  he  cried,  with  more  enterprise,  with  more 
capital  than  any  trading  nation  in  the  world,  all  that  we  ought 
to  covet  upon  earth  is  free  trade  and  open  markets.  His  defence 
of  the  pacific  policy  as  most  proper  for  this  country  was  as  ener- 
getic as  his  enthusiasm  for  free  trade,  and  he  never  displayed 
more  vigor  and  conviction  than  when  he  attacked  Pitt  for  allow- 
ing himself —  and  this  was  before  the  war  with  the  French 
Eepublic  —  to  be  drawn  again  into  the  fatal  policy  of  European 
intervention  in  defence  of  the  integrity  of  the  Turkish  empire. 

The  reason  why  Shelburne's  words  were  no  more  than  a  passing 
and  an  unheeded  voice,  while  the  teaching  of  Cobden's  pamphlets 
stamped  a  deep  impression  on  men's  minds,  —  which  time,  in  spite 
of  inevitable  phases  of  reaction  and  the  temporary  recrudescence 
of  bad  opinions,  has  only  made  more  definite,  —  is  the  decisive 
circumstance  which  has  already  been  sufficiently  dwelt  upon,  that 
the  huge  expansion  of  the  manufacturing  interests  had,  when 
Cobden  appeared,  created  a  powerful  public  naturally  favorable 
to  the  new  principles,  and  raised  what  would  otherwise  have  been 
only  the  tenets  of  a  school  into  the  programme  of  a  national 
party. 

As  we  shall  see  when  we  come  to  the  Crimean  War,  the  new 
principles  did  not  at  once  crush  out  the  old ;  it  was  not  to  be 
expected  by  any  one  who  reflects  on  the  strength  of  prejudice, 
especially  prejudice  supported  by  the  consciousness  of  an  honor- 
able motive,  that  so  sudden  a  change  should  take  place.  But  the 
pamphlets  are  a  great  landmark  in  the  history  of  politics  in  Eng- 
•land,  and  they  are  still  as  well  worth  reading  as  they  ever  were. 
Some  of  the  statements  are  antiquated ;  the  historical  criticism  is 
sometimes  open  to  doubt ;  there  are  one  or  two  mistakes.  But 
they  are  mostly  like  the  poet's,  who  spoke  of  "  i  miei  non  falsi 
erroriJ'  If  time  has  weakened  their  literal  force,  it  has  confirmed 
their  real  significance. 

In  a  personal  biography,  it  is  perhaps  not  out  of  place  to  dwell 
in  conclusion  on  a  point  in  the  two  pamphlets,  which  is  of  very 
secondary  importance  compared  with  their  political  teaching,  and 
yet  which  has  an  interest  of  its  own ;  I  mean  the  literary  excel- 
lence of  these  performances.  They  have  a  ringing  clearness,  a 
genial  vivacity,  a  free  and  confident  mastery  of  expression,  which 


76  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1837. 

can  hardly  be  surpassed.  Cobdeii  is  a  striking  instance  against 
a  favorite  plea  of  the  fanatics  of  Latin  and  Greek.  They  love  to 
insist  that  a  collegian's  scholarship  is  the  great  source  and  foun- 
tain of  a  fine  style.  It  would  be  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  our 
classical  training  is  more  aptly  calculated  to  destroy  the  qualities 
of  good  writing  and  fine  speaking,  than  any  other  system  that 
could  have  been  contrived.  Those  qualities  depend  principally, 
in  men  of  ordinary  endowment,  upon  a  certain  large  freedom  and 
spontaneousness,  and  next  upon  a  strong  habit  of  observing  things 
before  words.  These  are  exactly  the  habits  of  mind  which  our  way 
of  teaching,  or  rather  of  not  teaching,  Latin  and  Greek  inevitably 
chills,  and  represses  in  any  one  in  whom  literary  faculty  is  not  abso- 
lutely irrepressible.  What  is  striking  in  Cobden  is  that  after  a  lost 
and  wasted  childhood,  a  youth  of  drudgery  in  a  warehouse,  and  an 
early  manhood  passed  amid  the  rather  vulgar  associations  of  the 
commercial  traveller,  he  should  at  the  age  of  one  and  thirty  have 
stepped  forth  the  master  of  a  written  style,  which  in  boldness, 
freedom,  correctness,  and  persuasive  moderation,  was  not  surpassed 
by  any  man  then  living.  He  had  taken  pains  with  his  mind,  and 
had  been  a  diligent  and  extensive  reader,  but  he  had  never 
studied  language  for  its  own  sake. 

It  was  fortunate  for  him  that,  instead  of  blunting  the  sponta- 
neous faculty  of  expression  by  minute  study  of  the  verbal  pecu- 
liarities of  a  Lysias  or  an  Isocrates,  he  should  have  gone  to  the 
same  school  of  active  public  interests  and  real  things  in  which 
those  fine  orators  had  in  their  different  degrees  acquired  so  happy 
a  union  of  homeliness  with  purity,  and  of  amplitude  with  measure. 
These  are  the  very  qualities  that  we  notice  in  Cobden's  earliest 
pages  ;  they  evidently  sprang  from  the  writer's  singular  directness 
of  eye,  and  eager  and  disinterested  sincerity  of  social  feeling, 
undisturbed  as  both  these  gifts  fortunately  were  by  the  vices  of 
literary  self-consciousness. 


CHAPTEE  V. 

LIFE  IN  MANCHESTER,    1837-39. 

A  FEW  weeks  after  Cobden's  return  home  from  the  East,  "William 
the  Fourth  died  (June  20),  and  the  accession  of  Queen  Victoria 
to  the  throne  was  followed  by  a  general  election.  For  some 
months  Cobden's  name  had  been  before  the  politicians  of  Stock- 
port, and  while  he  was  abroad,  he  had  kept  his  brother  constantly 


,Et.33.]  life  in  MANCHESTER,   1837-39.  77 

instructed  how  to  proceed  in  the  various  contingencies  Df  elec- 
tioneering. Frederick  Oobden  seems  even  at  this  early  stage  to 
have  expressed  some  not  unnatural  anxiety  lest  public  life  should 
withdraw  the  indispensable  services  of  his  brother  from  their  busi- 
ness. He  had  even  remonstrated  against  any  further  pamphlets. 
"  Do  not  fear,"  replied  Eichard  Cobden,  "  I  am  not  author-mad. 
But  I  have  written  a  letter  to  the  editor  of  the  Globe,  in  which," 
—  and  so  forth.^  He  was  in  no  sense  author-mad,  but  still  he 
was  overflowing  with  thoughts  and  arguments  and  a  zeal  for  the 
commonwealth,  which  made  publication  in  one  shape  or  another 
as  much  a  necessity  to  him,  as  it  is  a  necessity  to  a  poet  or  an 
apostle.  In  the  same  letter,  in  answer  to  a  friend's  warning  that 
he  should  not  spoil  his  holiday  by  anxiety  as  to  affairs  at  home, 
he  said :  —  "I  am  not,  I  assure  him,  giving  one  moment's  thought 
to  the  Stockport  electors.  The  worthy  folks  may  do  as  they 
please.  They  can  make  me  M.  P.  by  their  favor,  but  they  cannot 
mar  my  happiness  if  they  reject  me.  It  is  '  the  cause  '  with  which 
I  am  in  some  degree  identified,  that  makes  me  anxious  about  the 
result.  Personally,  as  you  well  know,  I  would  rather  have  my 
freedom  for  two  years  more."  .  .  .  .  "  Let  me  say  once  for  all,  in 
reference  to  the  Stockport  affair,  that  I  shall  be  quite  happy, 
whichever  way  the  die  falls.  You  know  me  better  than  any  other 
person,  and  I  am  sure  you  will  believe  that  my  peace  or  happi-  v 
ness  does  not  depend  upon  external  circumstances  of  this  or  any 
similar  nature."  ^ 

Yet  even  in  this  free  mood,  Cobden  knew  his  own  mind,  as  he 
never  failed  to  do,  and  he  intended  to  be  elected  if  possible.  He 
belonged  to  the  practical  type,  with  whom  to  have  once  decided 
■upon  a  course  becomes  in  itself  a  strong  independent  reason  for 
continuing  in  it.  "  One  word  as  to  your  own  private  feelings," 
he  writes  to  his  brother,  "  which  may  from  many  causes  be  rather 
inclined  to  lead  you  to  wish  that  my  entrance  into  public  life 
were  delayed  a  little.  I  shall  only  say  that  on  this  head  it  is  now 
too  late  to  parley ;  it  is  now  useless  to  waver,  or  to  shrink  from  the 
realization  of  that  which  we  had  resolved  upon  and  entered  upon, 
not  as  children,  but  as  men  knowing  that  action  must  follow  such 
resolves.  Your  temperament  and  mine  are  unequal,  but  in  this 
matter  I  shall  only  remind  you  that  my  feelings  are  more  deeply 
implicated  than  your  own,  and  that  whilst  I  can  meet  with  an  ade- 
quate share  of  fortitude  any  failure  which  comes  from  insuperable 
causes,  whatever  may  be  the  object  I  have  in  view,  yet  if  in  this 
case  my  defeat  should  spring  from  your  timidity  or  sensitiveness 
(shall  1  say  disinclination  ?),  it  would  afflict  me  severely,  and  I 
fear  lastingly."  ^ 

1  To  F.  Cobden.     Nov.  11,  1836.  2  To  F.   C,  Jan.  4,  1837. 

8  To  F.  C.     Jan.  28,  1837. 


78  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1837. 

As  the  election  drew  nearer,  Cobden  was  overtaken  by  that 
eager  desire  to  succeed,  which  gradually  seizes  even  the  most 
philosophical  candidate  as  the  passion  of  battle  waxes  hotter 
around  him.  He  threw  himself  into  the  struggle  with  all  his 
energy.  It  is  historically  interesting  to  know  what  Liberal  elec- 
tors were  thinking  about  in  those  days.  We  find  that  they  asked 
their  candidate  his  opinion  as  to  the  property  qualification  for 
Members  of  Parliament,  Primogeniture,  the  Poor  Law  Amend- 
ment Act,  and  the  Factory  Question.  The  last  of  the  list  was 
probably  the  most  important,  for  Cobden  had  taken  the  trouble 
many  months  before  to  set  out  his  opinions  on  that  subject  in  a 
letter  to  the  chairman  of  his  committee.  The  matter  remains  of 
vital  importance  in  our  industrial  system  to  the  present  time,  and 
is  still,  in  the  face  of  the  competition  of  other  nations,  the  object 
of  a  controversy  which  is  none  the  less  alive  in  the  region  of 
theory,  because  the  legislature  has  decided  it  in  one  way  in  the 
region  of  practice.  As  that  is  so,  it  is  interesting  still  to  know 
Cobden's  earliest  opinions  on  the  matter ;  and  I  have  therefore 
printed  at  the  end  of  the  volume  the  letter  that  Cobden  wrote,  in 
the  autumn  of  1836,  on  the  restriction  by  Parliament  of  the 
hours  of  labor  in  factories.^ 

What  he  said  comes  to  this,  that  for  plain  physical  reasons  no 
child  ought  to  be  put  to  work  in  a  cotton  mill  so  early  as  the  age 
of  thirteen,  but  whatever  restrictions  on  the  hours  of  labor  might 
be  desirable,  it  was  not  for  the  legislature  to  impose  them  :  it  was 
for  the  workmen  to  insist  upon  them,  relying  not  on  Parliament, 
but  on  their  own  action.  A  workman,  by  saving  the  twenty 
pounds  that  would  carry  him  across  the  Atlantic,  could  make 
himself  as  independent  of  his  employer,  as  the  employer  is  inde- 
pendent of  him  ;  and  in  this  independence  he  would  be  free,  with- 
out the  emasculatinoj  interference  of  Parliament,  to  drive  his  own 
bargain  as  to  how  many  hours  he  would  work.  In  meeting  his 
committee  at  Stockport,  Cobden  repeated  his  conviction  that  the 
factory  operatives  had  it  in  their  power  to  shorten  the  hours  of 
labor  without  the  aid  of  Parliament,  but  to  infant  labor,  as  he  had 
said  before,  he  would  afford  the  utmost  possible  protection.  He 
laughed  at  the  mock  philanthropy  of  the  Tory  landowners,  who 
took  so  lively  an  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  factory  population, 
and  yet  declined  to  suffer  the  slightest  relaxation  of  the  corn 
laws,  tliough  these  did  more  to  degrade  and  pauperize  the  labor- 
ing classes,  by  doubling  the  price  of  food  and  limiting  employ- 
ment, than  any  other  evil  of  which  they  had  to  complain. 

Whether  these  views  alienated  any  of  those  who  would  other- 
wise have  supported  him,  we  do  not  know.     Probably  the  most 

1  See  Appendix,  Note  A. 


^T.  33.]  LIFE   IN   MANCHESTER,    1837-39.  79 

effective  argument  against  Cobden's  candidature  was  the  fact  that 
he  was  a  stranger  to  the  borough.  On  the  day  of  election  he  was 
found  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  the  poll.^  He  wrote  to  his  uncle, 
Mr.  Cole,  explaining  his  defeat :  — 

"  The  cause  of  failure  was  that  there  was  too  much  confidence  on 
the  part  of  the  Eeformers.  We  were  too  satisfied,  and  neglected 
those  means  of  insuring  the  election  which  the  Tories  used,  and 
by  their  activity  at  Stockport  as  elsewhere  they  gained  the  vic- 
tory. If  the  battle  had  to  be  fought  again  to-morrow,  I  could 
win.  To  revenge  themselves  for  the  loss  of  their  man,  the  Radi- 
cals have  since  the  election  adopted  a  system  of  exclusive  dealing 
{not  countenanced  hy  me),  and  those  publicans  and  shopkeepers 
who  voted  for  the  Major  now  find  their  counters  deserted.  The 
consequence  is  that  the  Reformers  place  printed  placards  over  their 
shops.  Voted  for  Golden,  inscribed  in  large  characters,  and  the 
butchers  and  greengrocers  in  the  market-place  cry  out  from  their 
stalls,  Cobden  beef,  Cobden  potatoes,  etc.  So  you  see  I  have  not 
lost  ground,  by  my  failure  at  the  poll,  with  the  unwashed.  But 
the  truth  is  I  am  quite  reconciled  to  the  result.  There  are  many 
considerations  which  make  me  conclude  it  is  all  for  the  best."  ^ 

His  friends  made  arrangements  for  presenting  him  with  a 
piece  of  plate,  and  seventeen  thousand  subscribers  of  one  penny 
each  raised  the  necessary  fund.  For  some  reason,  Daniel  O'Con- 
nell  was  invited  to  be  present.  He  and  Cobden  drove  together 
in  an  open  carriage  to  Stockport  (November  13,  1837),  where 
they  addressed  an  immense  meeting  in  the  open  air,  and  after- 
wards spoke  at  a  public  dinner.  To  the  great  Liberator  the 
reporter  of  the  day  generously  accords  three  columns,  while  Cob- 
den's words  were  condensed  into  that  scanty  space  which  is  the 
common  lot  of  orators  who  have  won  no  spurs.  His  chief  topic 
seems  to  have  been  the  ballot;  he  declared  that,  without  that  ^ 
protection,  household  suffrage,  the  repeal  of  the  corn  laws,  the 
shortening  of  parliaments,  would  all  be  insecure  benefits.  There 
is  in  this  a  certain  inversion  of  his  usual  order  of  thinking  about 
the  proper  objects  of  political  solicitude,  for  he  commonly  paid 
much  less  heed  to  the  machinery,  than  to  the  material  objects  of 
government. 

It  was  quite  as  well  for  Cobden's  personal  interests  that  he 
was  left  free  for  a  little  time  longer  to  attend  to  his  business. 
The  rather  apprehensive  character  of  his  brother  made  him  little 
able  to  carry  on  the  trade  in  an  intrepid  and  enterprising  spirit, 
and  at  every  step  the  judgment,  skill,  and  energy  of  a  stronger 
head  were  wanted.     At  this  time  the  scale  of  the  business,  which 

1  Henry  Marsland  (Reformer)  480  ;  Major  Marsland  (Tory)  471 ;  Richard  Cobden 
(Reformer)  418. 

-  To  Mr.  Cole.     Sept.  6,  1837. 


80  LIFE  OF   COBDEN.  [1838. 

had  started  from  such  small  begimiings,  had  become  so  extensive 
that  Cobden  estimated  the  capital  in  it  as  no  less  than  80,000/., 
with  a  credit  in  acceptances  of  at  least  25,000/. :  he  represented 
the  turn-over  as  150,000/.^  In  1836  the  books  show  that  the 
net  profits  of  the  firm  had  exceeded  23,000/.  for  the  year ;  and 
though  the  trade  was  so  fluctuating  that  the  first  half  of  the  fol- 
lowing year  only  showed  a  profit  of  4000/.,  Cohden's  sanguine 
temperament  led  him  to  speak  as  if  their  capital  were  being  regu- 
larly augmented  at  the  rate  of  2000/.  a  month.  We  can  easily 
understand  Frederick  Cobden's  unwillingness  to  be  left  to  his 
own  resources  in  the  administration  of  a  business  of  this  size,  and 
his  brother  promised  repeatedly  not  to  throw  so  heavy  a  responsi- 
bility upon  him.  From  the  time  of  Cobden's  return  from  the 
East  they  had  both  nourished  the  idea  of  separating  from  the 
London  firm,  as  well  as  from  the  Sabden  factory,  and  the  idea  re- 
mained in  their  minds  for  a  couple  of  years.  Then,  as  we  shall 
presentl}^  see,  it  was  carried  into  execution. 

Cobden,  however,  had  made  up  his  mind  after  the  Stockport 
election  that  to  push  his  material  fortunes  was  not  to  be  the 
great  aim  of  his  life.  "  I  am  willing  to  give  a  few  years  of  entire 
exertion,"  he  wrote  in  1838,  '•'  towards  making  the  separation 
successful  to  ourselves.  But  at  the  same  time  all  my  exertions 
will  be  with  an  eye  to  make  myself  independent  of  all  business 
claims  on  my  time  and  anxieties.  Towards  this,  Henry  and 
Charles  [their  two  younger  brothers]  will  for  their  own  sakes,  I 
expect,  contribute.  And  I  hope  and  expect  in  five  years  they 
will  be  in  a  situation  to  force  me  out  of  the  concern,  a  willing 
exile.  At  all  events  I  am  sure  there  will  not  want  talent  of  some 
kind  about  us,  to  take  advantage  of  my  determination  to  be  at 
ease,  and  have  some  time  for  leisure  to  take  care  of  my  health, 
and  indulge  tastes  which  are  in  some  degree  essential  to  my 
happiness.  With  reference  to  health,  both  you  and  I  must  not 
omit  reasonable  precautions ;  we  are  not  made  for  rivalling  Me- 
thusaleh,  and  if  we  can  by  care  stave  off  the  grim  enemy  for 
twenty  years  longer,  w^e  shall  do  more  than  nature  intended  for 
us.  At  all  events  let  us  remember  that  to  live  usefully  is  far 
better  than  living  long.  And  do  not  let  us  deprive  ourselves  of 
the  gratification  at  last,  a  gratification  which  the  selfish  never 
have,  that  we  have  not  embittered  our  whole  lives  with  heaping 
up  money,  but  that  we  have  given  a  part  of  our  time  to  more 
rational  and  worthy  exertions."  ^ 

Even  now,  when  the  indispensable  work  of  laying  a  base  of 
material  prosperity  was  still  incomplete,  and  when  his  own  busi- 
ness might  well  have  occupied  his  whole  attention,  he  was  always 

1  Letter  to  F.  Cobden.     Feb.  24,  1837. 

2  To  F.  C.     Oct.  26,  1838. 


^T.34.]  LIFE   IN   MANCHESTER,    1837-39.  81 

thinking  much  more  earnestly  about  the  interests  of  others  than 
his  own.  The  world  of  contemporaries  and  neighbors  seldom 
values  or  loves  this  generous  and  unfamiliar  spirit,  and  the  tone 
of  Manchester  was  in  this  respect  not  much  higher  than  that  of 
the  rest  of  the  world.  It  cannot  surprise  us  to  learn  that  for 
some  time  Cobden  made  no  great  progress  in  Manchester  society. 
He  was  extremely  self-possessed  and  self-confident,  and  as  a  con- 
sequence he  was  often  thought  to  be  wanting  in  the  respect  that 
is  due  from  a  young  man  to  his  elders,  and  from  a  man  who  has 
a  fortune  to  make  towa^rds  tliose  who  have  made  it.  His  dash, 
his  freedom  of  speech,  his  ardor  for  new  ideas,  were  taken  for 
signs  of  levity;  and  a  certain  airy  carelessness  about  dress  marked 
a  rebel  against  the  minor  conventions  of  the  world.  The  patient 
endurance  of  mere  ceremonial  was  at  this  time  impossible  to  him. 
He  could  not  be  brought  to  attend  the  official  dinners  given  by 
the  Lord  of  the  Manor.  When  he  was  selected  to  serve  as  as- 
sessor at  the  Court  Leet  for  manorial  purposes,  though  the  occa- 
sion brought  him  into  contact  with  men  who  might  have  been 
useful  to  him  in  his  business,  he  treated  the  honor  very  easily. 
He  sat  restlessly  on  his  bench,  and  then  strolled  away  after  an 
hour  or  two  had  shown  him  that  the  proceedings  were  without 
real  significance.  He  could  not  even  understand  tlie  urgency  of 
more  prudent  friends  that  he  should  return.  It  was  not  conceit 
nor'  conscious  defiance,  but  the  incapacity  inborn  in  so  active  and 
serious  an  intelligence,  of  contentedly  muffling  itself  even  for 
half  a  day  under  idle  forms.  He  was  born  a  political  man ;  his 
most  real  interests  in  the  world  were  wholly  in  affairs  of  govern- 
ment and  institution,  and  his  dominant  passion  was  a  passion 
for  improvement.  His  whole  mind  was  possessed  by  the  high 
needs  and  great  opportunities  of  society,  as  the  minds  of  some 
other  men  have  been  possessed  by  the  aspirations  of  religion,  and 
he  had  as  \ittle  humor  for  the  small  things  of  worldly  punctilio 
as  Calvin  or  as  Knox  may  have  had. 

I  have  already  described  the  relation  of  some  of  Cobden's  ideas 

to  those  of  George  Combe.     It  was,  above  all  other  things,  for  the 

sake  of  the  prospect  which  it  held  out  of  supplying  a  sure  basis 

and  a  trustworthy  guide  in  the  intricate  and  encumbered  path  of 

lational  education,  that  he  was  drawn  for  a  time  to  Combe's  sys- 

.em  of  phrenology.     His  letters  during  the  years  of  which  we  are 

low  speaking  abound  pretty  freely  in  the  terms  of  that  crude 

•atalogue,  but  with  him  they  are  less  like  the  jargon    of  the 

)hrenological  fanatic  of  those  days,  than  the  good-humored  lan- 

,mage  of  a  man  who  believes  in  a  general  way  that  there  is  some- 

hing  in  it.     In  1835  he  had  been  instrumental  in  forming  a 

)hrenological  society  in  Manchester,  and  the  first  of  a  series  of 

etters  to  Combe  is  one  in  1836,  pressing  him  to  deliver  a  course' 

6 


.82  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1838- 

of  lectures  in  that  town.  It  is  interesting  as  an  illustration  of 
the  amazing  growth  both  in  rational  tolerance  and  scientific  opin- 
ion, when  we  compare  the  very  moderate  heterodoxy  of  phre- 
nology with  the  doctrines  that  in  our  own  day  are  publicly  dis- 
cussed without  alarm.  "The  Society  which  we  profess  to  have 
here,"  Cobden  writes,  "  is  not  well  supported,  and  for  nearly  a 
twelvemonth  it  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  manifested  many 
signs  of  existence. 

"The  causes  are  various  why  phrenology  languishes,  but 
probably  the  primary  one  may  be  sought  in  that  feeling  of  fash- 
ionable timidity  among  the  leading  medical  men  and  others  who, 
although  professing  to  support  it  privately,  have  not  yet  openly 
avowed  themselves  disciples  of  the  science  of  Spurzheim  and  Gall. 
But  phrenology  is  rapidly  disenthralling  itself  from  that  *  cold 
obstruction '  of  ridicule  and  obloquy,  which  it  has,  in  cotnmon 
with  every  other  reform  and  improvement,  had  to  contend  against, 
and  probably  the  mind  of  the  community  of  Manchester  presents 
at  tins  moment  as  fine  a  field,  in  which  to  sow  the  seeds  of 
instruction  by  means  of  a  course  of  lectures  by  the  author 
of  The  Constitution  of  Man,  as  could  be  found  anywhere  in  the 

world The  difficulty  of  religious  prejudice  exists  here,  and 

it  requires  delicate  handling.  Thanks,  however,  to  the  pursuits 
of  the  neighborhood,  to  the  enlightening  cliemical  and  mechanical 
studies  with  which  our  industry  is  allied,  and  to  the  mnid- 
invigorating  effect  of  an  energetic  devotion  to  commerce,  we  are 
not,  as  at  Liverpool,  in  a  condition  to  tolerate  rampant  exhibitions 

of  intolerance  here The  High  Church  party  stands  sullenly 

aloof  from  all  useful  projects,  and  the  severer  sectarians  restrict 
themselves  here,  as  elsewhere,  to  their  own  narrow  sphere  of 
exertion,  but  the  tone  of  public  opinion  in  Manchester  is  superior 
to  the  influence  of  either  of  these  extremes.  How  I  pity  you  in 
Scotland,  the  only  country  in  the  world  in  which  a  wealthy  and 
intelligent  middling  class  submits  to  the  domination  of  a  spiritual 
tyranny."  ^ 

Though  he  was  intolerant  of  the  small  politics  of  the  Borough- 
reeve  and  the  Constables,  Cobden  did  not  count  it  as  small  politics 
to  agitate  with  might  and  main  on  behalf  of  the  incorporation  of 
the  great  city  to  which  he  belonged.  His  large  comprehension 
of  the  greater  needs  of  civilization  and  his  country  never  at  any 
time  in  his  life  dulled  his  interest  in  the  need  that  lay  close  to  his 
hand.  The  newspapers  of  the  time  show  him  to  have  been  the 
moving  spirit  in  the  proceedings  for  incorporation,  from  the  first 
requisition  to  the  Borough-reeve  and  Constable  to  call  a  meeting 
of  the  rate-payers  (February  3,  1838) ,  down  to  the  final  triumph. 

1  To  George  Combe.     Aug.  23,  1836. 


7ET.34.]  LIFE   IN   MANCHESTER,   1837-39.  83 

The  Municipal  Reform  Act  had  been  passed  by  Lord  Mel- 
bourne's Government  in  1835,  on  the  return  of  the  Whigs  to 
power  after  the  short  ministry  of  Sir  Robert  Peel.  It  was  the 
proper  complement  to  the  greater  Reform  of  1832.  By  extending 
the  principle  of  self-government  from  national  to  local  affairs, 
it  purified  and  enlarged  the  organs  of  administrative  power,  and 
furnished  new  fields  of  discipline  in  the  habits  of  the  good  citizen. 
In  1833  Brougham  had  introduced  a  measure  for  immediately 
incorporating  such  towns  as  Manchester  and  Birmingham,  and 
directly  conferring  local  representative  government  upon  them  by 
Act  of  Parliament,  But  between  1833  and  1835  things  had 
happened  which  quenched  these  spirited  methods.  A  process 
which  had  been  imperative  in  1833,  had  by  1835  dwindled  down 
to  the  permissive.  Places  were  allowed  to  have  charters,  on 
condition  that  a  majority  of  the  rate-payers,  being  inhabitant 
householders,  expressed  their  desire  for  incorporation  by  petition 
to  the  Crown  in  Council.  A  muddy  sea  of  corruption  and  chicane 
was  stirred  up.  All  the  vested  interests  of  obstruction  were  on 
the  alert.  The  close  and  self-chosen  members  of  the  Court  Leet, 
and  the  Streets  Commission,  and  the  Town  Hall  Commission, 
could  not  endure  the  prospect  of  a  system  in  which  the  public 
business  would  no  longer  be  done  in  the  dark,  and  the  public 
money  no  longer  expended  without  responsibility  to  those  who 
paid  it.  The  battle  between  privilege  and  popular  representation 
which  had  been  fought  on  the  great  scene  at  Westminster  in  1832, 
was  now  resumed  and  fought  out  on  the  pettier  stage  of  the  new 
boroughs.  The  classes  who  had  lost  the  power  of  bad  government 
on  a  large  national  scale,  tried  hard  to  retain  it  on  a  small  local 
scale.  The  low-minded  and  corrupt  rabble  of  freemen  and  pot- 
wallopers  united  with  those  who  were  on  principle  the  embittered 
enemies  of  all  improvement,  the  noisy,  inglorious  Eldons  of  the 
provincial  towns,  and  did  their  best  to  thwart  the  petitions.  The 
Tories  and  the  Residuum,  to  use  the  phrase  of  a  later  day,  made 
tliat  alliance  which  Cobden  calls  unholy,  but  which  rests  on  the 
natural  affinities  of  bigotry  and  ignorance.  The  Whig,  as  usual, 
was  timid  and  uncomfortable ;  he  went  about  murmuring  that  a 
charter  was  unnecessary,  and  muttered  something  about  expense. 

"  When  your  former  kind  and  friendly  letter  reached  me,"  Cob- 
den writes  to  Tait,  the  Edinburgh  publisher,  "  I  was  engaged 
before  the  Commissioners,  employed  in  exposing  the  trickery  of 
the  Tories  in  getting  up  their  petition  against  the  incorporation 
of  our  borough.  For  three  weeks  I  was  incessantly  occupied  at 
the  Town  Hall.  By  dint  of  hard  work  and  some  expense,  we  got 
at  the  filth  in  their  Augean  stable,  and  laid  their  dirty  doings 
before  the  public  eye.  I  believe  now  there  is  little  doubt  of  our 
being  chartered  before  the  next  November  election,  and  it  will  be 


84  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1838. 

a  new  era  for  Manchester  when  it  shakes  off  the  feudal  livery 
of  Sir  Oswald  Mosley,  to  put  on  the  democratic  garb  of  the 
Municipal  Eeform  Act. 

"  So  important  do  I  consider  the  step  for  incorporating  the 
borough,  that  I  have  been  incessantly  engaged  at  the  task  for 
tlie  last  six  months.  I  began  by  writing  a  letter  of  which  I 
circulated  five  thousand  copies,  with  a  view  of  gaining  the  Eadicals 
by  showing  the  popular  provisions  of  the  Act.  Will  you  credit 
it  —  the  low,  blackguard  leaders  of  the  Eadicals  joined  with  the 
Tories  and  opposed  us.  The  poor-law  lunatics  raised  their  de- 
mented yell,  and  we  were  menaced  with  nothing  but  defeat  and 
annihilation  at  the  public  meeting.  However,  we  sent  a  circular 
to  every  one  of  the  10/.  parlian>entary  electors  who  support  liberal 
men,  calling  upon  them  to  aid  us  at  the  public  meeting,  and  they 
came  forward  to  our  rescue.  The  sliopocracy  carried  the  day. 
Two  or  three  of  the  Tory-Eadical  leaders  now  entered  the  service 
of  the  Tories,  with  a  view  to  obtain  the  signature  of  their  fel- 
lows to  a  petition  against  incorporation.  They  pretended  to  get 
upwards  of  thirty  thousand  names,  for  which  they  were  well  paid. 
But  the  voting  has  shown  that  four  fifths  were  forgeries.  So  much 
for  the  unholy  alliance  of  Tory  and  Eadical  1 

"  I  mention  all  this  as  my  best  excuse  for  not  having  written 
to  you,  or  for  you,  for  so  many  months.  What  with  going  twice 
to  London  on  deputations,  and  fighting  the  battle  with  two  ex- 
treme political  parties  in  Manchester,  I  have  been  so  constantly 
engaged  in  action,  that  I  have  not  had  time  for  theorizing  upon 
any  topic.  Still  I  have  not  abandoned  the  design  of  using  my 
pen  for  your  magazine.  I  have  half  collected  materials  for  an 
article  on  convulsions  in  trade  and  banking,  which  when  published 
will  probably  attract  some  notice  from  people  engaged  in  such 
pursuits."  ^ 

"  Not  having  received  a  word  of  news,  good  or  bad,  from  you 
since  I  came  here,"  lie  wrote  to  his  brother,  "  I  conclude  that  nothing 
particularly  important  can  have  occurred.  You  will  have  heard, 
I  dare  say,  the  result  of  our  interview  with  the  Lords  of  the 
Council.  There  is,  I  think,  not  a  shadow  of  doubt  of  the  ultimate 
result  of  the  application,  but  I  am  not  pleased  with  the  Whig 
Ministry's  mode  of  proceeding  in  these  Corporation  affairs.  It  is 
quite  certain  that  they  are  willing  we  should  be  put  to  quite  as 
much  trouble  by  the  Tories,  as  that  party  is  able  to  impose  on  us. 
In  the  case  of  the  Sheffield  petition,  I  do  not  think  the  Charter 
will  be  granted  at  all,  merely  because  the  Tories  have  contrived 
to  get  a  greater  number  of  ragamuffins  to  sign  against  it,  than 
have  subscribed  for  the  Charter.     I  saw  one  of  the  deputation 

1  To  Mr.  W,  Tail,  of  EdinUirgh.     July  3,  1838. 


iEx.  34.]  ^        LIFE    IN   MANCHESTER,    1837-39.  85 

to-day,  who  is  quite  disgusted  with  the  whole  set ;  and  Scholefield 
of  Birmingham  told  me  that  if  he  and  Attwood  had  not  bullied 
the  Whigs,  and  threatened  to  vote  against  them,  the  Birmingham 
petition  would  not  have  been  acceded  to.  They  are  a  bad  lot,  and 
the  sooner  tliey  go  out,  the  better  for  the  real  reformers."  ^ 

"  That  truckling  subserviency,"  he  writes  later  in  this  year, 
"  of  the  Ministry  to  the  menaces  of  the  Tories,  is  just  in  character 
with  the  conduct  of  tlie  Whigs,  on  all  questions  great  or  little. 
Without  principle  or  political  honesty,  they  are  likewise  destitute 
oT  any  atom  of  the  courage  or  independence  which  honesty  can 
inspire,  and  the  party  which  bullies  them  most  will  be  sure  to 
command  their  obedience.  In  the  matter  of  municipal  institu- 
tions their  hearts  are  against  us.-  C.  P.  Thomson  ^  told  us  plainly 
that  he  did  not  like  local  self-government,  and  are  his  Whig  col- 
leagues more  liberal  than  he  ?  I  am  sorry  I  am  not  at  home  to 
give  a  helping  hand  to  my  old  colleagues.  I  will  never  desert, 
and  if  the  matter  be  still  in  abeyance  when  I  get  back,  I  shall  be 
ready  and  willing  to  give  my  assistance." 

In  the  autumn  of  1838,  Lancashire  was  disturbed  by  torchlight 
meetings,  destruction  of  property,  and  other  formidable  proceed- 
ings, under  the  lead  of  the  Chartists,  —  Stephens,  Oastler,  and 
others.  This  superficial  outbreak  had  no  alarms  for  Cobden.  In 
a  vein  which  is  thoroughly  characteristic  of  the  writer,  he  pro- 
ceeds in  the  letter  from  which  I  have  been  quoting  :  — 

"As  respects  general  politics,  I  see  nothing  in  the  present 
radical  outbreak  to  cause  alarm,  or  make  one  dread  the  fate  of 
liberalism.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  preferable  to  the  apathy  of  the 
three  years  when  prosperity  (or  seemingly  so)  made  Tories  of  all. 
Nor  do  I  feel  at  all  inclined  to  give  up  politics  in  disgust,  as  you 
seem  to  do,  because  of  the  blunders  of  the  Eadicals.  They  are 
rash  and  presumptuous,  or  ignorant  if  you  will,  but  are  not  the 
governing  factions  something  worse  ?  Is  not  selfishness,  or  sys- 
tematic plunder,  or  political  knavery,  as  odious  as  the  blunders  of 
democracy  ?*  We  must  choose  between  the  party  which  governs  / 
upon  an  exclusive  or  monopoly  principle,  and  the  people  who  seek,^y* 
though  blindly  perhaps,  the  good  of  the  vast  majority.  If  they 
be  in  error  we  mu.^t  try  to  put  them  right,  if  rash,  to  moderate ; 

but  never,  never  talk  of  giving  up  the  ship /  think  the 

scattered  elements  may  yet  he  rallied  round  the  question  of  the  corn 
laws.     It  appears  to  me  that  a  moral  and  even  a  religious  spirit 

1  To  F.  W.  Cobden.     London,  May  4,  1838. 

2  Charles  Poulett  Thomson,  afterwards  Lord  Sydenham,  was  one  of  the  repre- 
sentatives of  Manchester  from  1832  to  1839.  On  the  reconstruction  of  the  Whig 
Government  under  Lord  Melbourne,  he  was  appointed  to  be  President  of  the  Board 
of  Trade  —  a  post  which  he  afterwards  gave  up,  in  order  to  go  out  as  Governor- 
General  of  Canada.  As  we  shall  see  in  a  later  chapter,  he  has  a  place  in  the  apos- 
tolic succession  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  after  Huskisson  and  Deacon  Hume. 


86  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  *  [1838. 

7nay  he  infused  into  that  topic,  and  if  agitated  in  the  same  manner 
that  the  (Question  of  slavery  has  been,  it  will  he  irresistible.  I  can 
give  this  question  a  great  lift  when  I  return,  by  publishing  the 
result  of  my  inquiries  into  the  state  of  things  on  the  Continent, 
and  particularly  with  reference  to  the  Prussian  Union."  ^ 

Yet  Cobden  had  in  his  heart  no  illusions  on  the  subject  of  his 
countrymen,  or  their  special  susceptibility  to  either  light  or  en- 
thusiasm. He  was  well  aware  of  the  strong  vault  of  bronzed 
prejudice  which  man  mistakes  for  the  luminous  firmament  of 
truth,  and  with  him  as  with  the  philosophic  reformers  in  France 
on  the  eve  of  the  Eevolution,  the  foundation  of  his  hope  lay  in  a 
peuple  eclairs,  the  enlightenment  of  the  population. 

"Do  not  let  your  zeal  for  the  cause  of  democracy,"  Cobden 
wrote  to  Tait,  the  Edinburgh  bookseller,  "  deceive  you  as  to  the 
fact  of  the  opaque  ignorctnce  in  which  the  great  bulk  of  the  people 
of  England  are  wrapt.  If  you  write  for  the  masses  politically, 
and  write  soundly  and  honestly,  they  will  not  be  able  at  present 
to  appreciate  you,  and  consequently  will  not  support  you.  You 
cannot  pander  to  the  new  Poor-law  delusion,  or  mix  up  the  Corn 
laws  with  the  Currency  quackeries  of  Attwood.  Nothing  but 
these  cries  will  go  down  with  the  herd  at  present.  There  is  an 
obvious  motive  about  certain  agitators'  movements.  They  hold 
up  impracticahilities ;  their  stock  in  trade  will  not  fall  short. 
Secondly,  these  prevent  intelligent  people  from  joining  said  agi- 
tators, who  would  be  likely  to  supersede  them  in  the  eyes  of  their 
followers.  There  is  no  remedy  for  all  this  but  improved  education. 
Such  as  the  tail  and  the  body  are,  such  will  be  the  character  of 
the  head.  Nature  does  not  produce  such  monsters  as  an  ignorant 
or  vicious  community,  and  virtuous  and  wise  leaders.  In  Scot- 
land you  are  better  off  because  you  are  better  educated.  The 
great  body  of  the  English  peasants  are  not  a  jot  advanced  in  in- 
tellect since  the  days  of  their  Saxon  ancestors. 

"  I  hope  you  will  join  us  in  a  cry  for  schoolmasters  as  a  first 

step  to  Kadicalism Whilst  I  would  caution  you  against 

too  much  political  stuff  in  your  magazine,  let  me  pray  you  to 
strike  a  blow  for  us  for  education.  I  have  unbounded  faith  in 
the  people,  and  would  risk  universal  suffrage  to-morrow  in  prefer- 
ence to  the  present  franchise.  But  we  shall  never  obtain  even  an 
approach  towards  such  a  change,  except  by  one  of  two  paths,  — • 
Eevolution  or  the  Schoolhouse.  By  the  latter  means  we  shall 
make  permanent  reform;  by  the  former,  we  shall  only  effect  con- 
vulsive and  transient  changes,  to  fall  back  again  like  Italy,  or 
Spain,  into  despotism  or  anarchy."  ^ 

In  August,  1838,  Cobden  again  started  for  a  month's  tour  in  Ger- 

1  To  F.  a     Oct.  5,  1838.  «  To  IV.  Tait.     Aug.  17,  1838. 


^T.  34.]  LIFE   IN   MANCHESTER,  1837-39.  87 

many,  partly  perhaps  to  appease  that  spirit  of  restlessness  which 
made  monotony  the  worst  kind  of  fatigue,  and  partly  to  increase 
his  knowledge  of  the  economic  condition  of  other  countries. 
"  What  nonsense,"  he  once  exclaimed,  "  is  uttered  even  by  the 
cleverest  men  when  they  get  upon  that  least  of  all  understood, 
and  yet  most  important  of  all  topics,  the  Trade  of  this  country  ! 
And  yet  every  dunce  or  aristocratic  blockhead  fancies  himself 
qualified  by  nature  to  preach  upon  this  complicated  and  difficult 
question."  ^  He  was  careful  not  to  lay  himself  open  to  the  same 
reproach  of  trusting  to  the  light  of  nature  for  wide  and  accurate 
knowledge,  and  he  turned  his  holiday  in  the  countries  of  the  Elbe 
and  the  Ehine  to  good  account  by  getting  together,  as  he  said, 
some  ammunition  about  the  corn  laws.  This  subject  was  now 
beginning  definitely  to  take  the  chief  place  in  his  interests. 

There  remains  among  his  correspondence  with  his  brother  dur- 
ing this  trip,  one  rather  remarkable  letter,  the  doctrine  of  which 
many  of  my  readers  will  certainly  resent,  and  it  is  indeed  open  to 
serious  criticism.  The  doctrine,  however,  is  too  characteristic  of 
a  peculiarity  in  Cobden's  social  theory,  for  me  to  omit  this  strong 
illustration  of  it ;  characteristic,  I  mean,  of  his  ruling  willingness, 
shown  particularly  in  his  dealings  with  the  Emperor  of  the  French, 
in  1860,  and  on  some  other  occasions,  to  treat  political  considera-  '• 
tions  as  secondary  to  those  of  social  and  economic  well-being. 

"  Although,"  he  says,  "  a  very  rapid  one,  my  journey  has  given 
me  a  better  insight  into  German  character  and  tlie  prospects  of 
central  Europe  than  I  could  have  ever  gained  from  the  eyes  of 
others.  Prussia  must  be  looked  upon  as  a  rising  state,  whose 
greatness  will  be  based  upoil  the  Commercial  League  [the  Zoll- 
verein].2  ....  The  effect  of  the  League  must  inevitably  be  to 
throw  the  preponderating  influence  over  thirty  millions  of  people 
into  the  hands  of  the  Cabinet  of  Berlin.  By  the  terms  of  the 
Union,  the  money  is  to  be  collected  and  paid  by  Prussia ;  a  very 
little  financial  skill  will  thus  very  easily  make  the  smaller  states 
the  pensioners  of  the  paymaster.  Already,  I  am  told,  Prussia  has 
been  playing  this  game ;  she  is  said  to  be  two  millions  of  dollars 
a  year  out  of  pocket  by  her  office,  owing  to  her  having  guaranteed 
the  smaller  partners  certain  amounts  of  revenue.  Besides  tlie 
power  tliat  such  a  post  of  treasurer  will  confer  upon  Prussia, 
other  causes  must  tend  to  v/eaken  the  influence  of  the  lesser 

1  To  W.  Tail.     May  5,  1837. 

2  The  Zollverein  or  Customs  Union  had  been  planned  as  far  back  as  1818,  but  it 
was  not  until  1833  that  the  treaty  was  signed  which  bound  most  of  the  German 
states,  except  Austria,  to  a  policy  of  free  trade  among  themselves,  while  protective 
duties  were  maintained  against  foreign  nations.  Poulett  Thomson,  and  other 
English  officials  of  the  same  liberal  stamp,  rightly  regarded  the  new  system  without 
apprehension,  for  it  recognized  the  expecliency  of  abolishing  commercial  restrictions 
over  a  great  area,  though  the  area  was  not  quite  great  enough. 


88  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1838. 

states*  governments.  A  common  standard  of  weights  and  meas- 
ures, as  well  as  of  money,  is  preparing,  and  these  being  assimi- 
lated, and  the  revenue  received  from  Prussia,  whose  literature 
and  modes  will  become  the  standard  for  the  other  portions  of 
Germany,  what  shall  prevent  this  entire  family  of  one  common 
language,  and  possessing  perfect  freedom  of  intercourse,  from 
merging  into  one  nation  ?  In  fact,  they  are  substantially  one 
nation  now,  and  their  remaining  subdivisions  will  become  by-and- 
by  only  imaginary ;  and  some  Eadicals  will  hereafter  propose,  as 
we  have  done  in  Manchester,  to  get  rid  of  the  antiquated  boun- 
daries of  the  townships  of  Hesse,  Oldenburg,  etc.,  and  place  the 
whole  under  one  Common  Council  at  Berlin.  There  are  heads  in 
Berlin  which  have  well  reflected  upon  this,  and  their  measures 
will  not  disappoint  their  country. 

"  I  very  much  suspect  that  at  present,  for  the  great  mass  of  the 
people,  Prussia  possesses  the  best  government  in  Europe.  I  would 
gladly  give  up  my  taste  for  talking  politics  to  secure  such  a  state 
of  things  in  England.  Had  our  people  such  a  simple  and  economi- 
cal government,  so  deeply  imbued  with  justice  to  all,  and  aiming 
so  constantly  to  elevate  mentally  and  morally  its  population, 
how  much  better  would  it  be  for  the  twelve  or  fifteen  millions  in 
the  British  Empire,  who,  while  they  possess  no  electoral  rights, 
are  yet  persuaded  they  are  freemen,  and  who  are  mystified  into 
the  notion  that  they  are  not  political  bondmen,  by  that  great 
juggle  of  the  '  English  Constitution '  —  a  thing  of  monopolies,  and 
Church-craft,  and  sinecures,  armorial  hocus-pocus,  primogeniture, 
and  pageantry !  The  Government  of  Prussia  is  the  mildest  phase 
in  which  absolutism  ever  presented' itself.  The  king,  a  good  and 
just  man,  has,  by  pursuing  a  systematic  course  of  popular  educa- 
tion, shattered  the  sceptre  of  despotism  even  in  his  own  hand, 
and  has  forever  prevented  his  successors  from  gathering  up  the 

fragments You  have  sometimes  wondered  what  becomes 

of  the  thousands  of  learned  men  who  continually  pass  from  the 
German  universities,  whilst  so  few  enter  upon  mercantile  pur- 
suits. Such  men  hold  all  the  official  and  Government  appoint- 
ments ;  and  they  do  not  require  1000/.  a  year  to  be  respectable  or 
respected  in  Prussia.  Habits  of  ostentatious  expenditure  are  not 
respectable  there.  The  king  dines  at  two,  rides  in  a  plain  car- 
riage, without  soldiers  or  attendants,  and  dresses  in  a  kind  of 
soldier's  relief  cap.  The  plays  begin  at  six  and  close  at  nine,  and 
all  the  world  goes  to  bed  at  ten  or  eleven."  ^ 

It  is  to  be  remembered  in  reading  this,  that  it  was  written 
forty  years  ago.  Not  a  few  considerate  observers  even  now  hold 
that  the  prospect  of  German  progress  which  Cobden  sketches, 

1  To  F.  Cobden.     Sept.  11,  1838. 


iET.34.]     ,  LIFE  IN  MANCHESTER,  1837-39."'  89 

woiild  have  been  happily  realized,  if  Prussian  statesmen  of  a  bad  ^ 
school  had  not  interrupted  the  working  of  orderly  forces  by  a  '  ■ 
policy  of  military  violence  which  precipitated  unity,  it  is  true, 
but  at  a  cost  to  the  best  causes  in  Germany  and  Europe,  for  which  /  \ 
unity,  artificial  and  unstable  as  it  now  is,  can  be  no  worthy  j 
recompense.  As  for  the  contempt  which  the  passage  breathes  for 
the  English  constitution,  it  is  easy  to  understand  the  disgust 
which  a  statesman  with  the  fervor  of  his  prime  upon  him,  and 
with  an  understanding  at  once  too  sincere  and  too  strong  to  be 
satisfied  with  conventional  shibboleths,  might  well  feel  alike  for 
the  hypocrisy  and  the  shiftlessness  of  a  system,  that  behind  the 
artfully  painted  mask  of  popular  representation  concealed  the 
clumsy  machinery  of  a  rather  dull  plutocracy.  It  is  not  right  to 
press  the  phrases  of  the  hasty  letter  of  a  traveller  too  closely.  If, 
as  it  is  reasonable  to  think,  Cobden  only  meant  that  the  energetic 
initiative  of  central  authorities  in  promoting  the  moralization  of  a 
country  is  indispensable  in  the  thick  populations  and  divided 
interests  of  modern  times,  and  that  the  great  want  of  England  is 
not  a  political  equality  which  she  has  got,  nor  a  natural  equality, 
which  neither  England  nor  any  other  country  is  ever  likely  to 
get,  but  a  real  equality  in  access  to  justice  and  in  chances  of 
mental  and  moral  elevation,  —  then  he  was  feeling  his  way  to  the 
very  truths  which,  of  all  others,  it  is  most  wholesome  for  us  to 
understand  and  to  accept.  Whatever  we  may  think  of  the  good 
word  which  Cobden  seems  to  have  for  beneficent  absolutism,  it  is 
at  least  a  mark  of  true  sagacity  to  have  discerned  that  manners 
may  have  as  much  to  do  with  the  happiness  of  a  people,  as  has 
the  form  of  their  government. 

In  a  letter  to  his  sister,  he  shows  that  his  journey  has  supplied 
him  with  material  for  an  instructive  contrast :  —  "  Let  me  give 
you  an  idea  of  society  here  by  telling  you  how  I  spent  yesterday, 
being  Sunday.  In  the  first  place  I  went  to  the  cathedral  church 
at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  a  very  large  building,  pretty  well 
filled  (the  ladies  were  as  fiv^e  to  one  in  the  congregation,  against 
the  number  of  male  attendants). 

"  The  singing  would  have  been  a  treat ;  but  unhappily  I  was 
placed  beside  a  little  old  man  whose  devotion  was  so  great,  that 
he  sang  louder  than  all  the  congregation,  in  a  screaming  tone  that 
pierced  my  tympanum.  I  heard  nothing  but  the  deep  notes  of 
the  organ,  and  the  little  man's  notes  still  ring  in  my  ears,  and  his 
ugly  little  persevering  face  will  haunt  me  till  I  reach  the  Ehine. 
The  sermon  lasted  forty  minutes ;  the  service  was  all  over  in  one 
hour  and  a  half,  and  at  eleven  o'clock  I  went  in  a  coach  to  the 
country  palace  of  the  king  at  Charlottenburg,  where  is  a  splendid 
mausoleum  and  a  statue  of  his  late  wife  to  be  seen.  The  statue 
is  a  masterpiece  of  the  first  Prussian  sculptor,  and  as  I  always 


90  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1838. 

criticise  masterpieces,  I  thought  it  stiff.  Passing  through  a  wood 
laid  oat  in  pleasant  walks,  interspersed  with  sheets  of  water  and 
provided  with  seats,  I  saw  numbers  of  the  cockneys  strolling 
about,  and  again  I  might  have  fancied  myself  in  Kensington 
Gardens.  But  the  variety  of  head-dress,  the  frequent  absence  of 
the  odious  bonnet  which  seems  a  part  of  the  Englishwoman's  na- 
ture, and  the  substitution  of  the  lace  or  gauze  covering,  which  aids 
rather  than  hides  the  prettiest  accessory  of  a  woman's  face,  her 
well-managed  hair,  reminded  me  that  I  was  from  home.  It  was 
a  quarter  to  two  as  I  returned,  and  I  met  the  king's  sons  going  to 
dine  with  their  father,  who  takes  that  meal  exactly  at  two.  So 
you  see  we  are  not  so  unfashionable  in  Quay  Street  as  we  imagined. 
After  taking  a  hasty  dinner  myself,  I  hired  a  horse  and  rode  again 
into  the  country  by  another  road,  and  visited  the  Tivoli  Gardens. 
On  the  way  I  passed  some  good  houses,  the  families  of  which 
were  all  outside,  either  in  balconies  or  in  the  gardens  before  the 
door,  with  tables  laid  out  with  refreshments,  at  which  the  gentle- 
men were  smoking,  the  ladies  knitting  or  sewing,  and  perhaps  the 
children  playing  around  with  frolicsome  glee.  All  this  close  to 
the  great  thoroughfare  to  Tivoli,  along  which  crowds  of  pedestrians 
of  all  ranks,  and  great  numbers  of  carriages  and  horsemen,  were 
proceeding.  Yet  nobody  turned  his  head  to  sneer,  or  to  insult 
others ;  there  was  no  intrusion  or  curiosity.  I  thought  of  old 
England,  and  as  I  knew  it  would  be  impossible  there  to  witness 
such  a  scene,  I  hope  I  did  right  in  condemning  the  good  people 
of  Berlin  for  their  irreligious  conduct.  At  the  Tivoli  Gardens, 
which  are  about  two  miles  from  the  town,  they  have  a  good  view 
of  the  city.  Here  are  Montagues  Eusses  and  other  amusements. 
The  day  was  splendid,  and  such  a  scene !  Hundreds  of  well- 
dressed  and  still  better  behaved  people  were  lounging  or  sitting 
in  the  large  gardens,  or  several  buildings  of  this  gay  retreat ;  in 
the  midst  were  many  little  tables  at  which  groups  were  sitting. 
The  ladies  had  their  work-bags,  and  were  knitting,  or  sewing,  or 
chatting,  or  sipping  coffee  or  lemonade ;  the  gentlemen  often 
smoking,  or  perhaps  flirting  with  their  party.  Then  the  scene  at 
the  Montagues  Russes  !  The  little  carriages  were  rattling  down, 
one  after  another  along  this  undulating  railroad  with  parties  of 
every  kind  and  age,  from  the  old  officer  to  the  kitten-like  child, 
who  clung  with  all  its  claws  to  the  nurse,  or  sister,  or  mamma, 
who  gave  it  the  treat.  Then  there  was  music,  and  afterwards 
fireworks,  and  so  went  off  the  day  at  Tivoli,  without  clamor,  rude- 
ness, or  drunkenness.  After  Tivoli  I  looked  in  at  the  two  prin- 
cipal theatres,  which  were  crammed  ;  and  so  ended  the  day  which 
to  me  was  not  a  day  of  rest.  If  you  think  this  is  an  improper 
picture  of  a  Protestant  Sunday,  on  the  other  hand,  the  sober  and 
orderly  German  thinks  the  drunkenness,  the  filthy  public-houses, 


^T.34.]       *  LIFE  IN  MANCHESTER,   1837-39.  91 

the  miserable  and  moping  mechanic  that  pines  in  his  dark  alley 
in  our  English  cities  on  the  Sabbath-clay,  are  infinitely  worse 
features  of  a  Protestant  community,  than  his  Tivoli  Gardens.  Are 
both  wrong  ?  "  ^ 

With  one  other  and  final  contrast,  we  may  leave  the  memorials 
of  the  foreign  tour  of  1838  :  — 

"  I  do  hope  the  leather-headed  bipeds  who  soak  themselves  upon 
prosperous  market-days  in  brandy  and  water  at  the  White  Bear, 
will  be  brought  to  the  temperature  of  rational  beings  by  the  last 
twelve  months'  regimen  of  low  prices.  And  then  let  us  hope  that 
we  may  see  them  trying  at  least  to  bestow  a  little  thought  upon 
their  own  interests,  in  matters  beyond  the  range  of  their  factory 
walls.  It  humiliates  me  to  think  of  the  class  of  people  at  home, 
who  belong  to  the  order  of  intelligent  and  educated  men  that  I 
see  on  the  Continent,  following  the  business  of  manufacturing, 
spinning,  etc.  Our  countrymen,  if  they  were  possessed  of  a  little 
of  the  mind  of  the  merchants  and  manufacturers  of  Frankfort, 
Chemnitz,  Elberfeld,  etc.,  would  become  the  De  Medicis,  and 
Fuggers,  and  De  Witts  of  England,  instead  of  glorying  in  being 
the  toadies  of  a  clodpole  aristocracy,  only  less  enlightened  than 
themselves  1"  2 

In  other  words,  they  would  become  the  powerful  and  inde- 
pendent statesmen  of  the  country,  the  creators  and  champions  of 
a  new  policy  adapted  to  the  ends  of  a  great  trading  community. 
Thrusting  aside  the  nobles  by  force  of  vigorous  intellectual  and 
moral  ascendency,  the  wealthy  middle  class  would  place  them- 
selves at  the  head  of  a  national  life  with  new  tyj)es  and  wiser 
ideas.  Any  one  who  reflects  on  the  gain  for  good  causes  in  Eng- 
land, if  only  the  foremost  men  of  this  class  would  dare  to  be 
themselves,  and  show  by  grave  and  self-respecting  example  that 
a  great  citizen  is  beyond  the  rivalry  of  the  great  noble,  will  cherish 
the  vision  that  passed  for  an  instant  before  Cobden's  social  imagi- 
nation. As  for  his  contrast  between  the  educated  traders  of  tlie 
Continent,  and  the  haunters  of  the  White  Bear  with  their  leathern 
heads,  we  may  be  sure  that  all  this  was  the  result  of  true  obser- 
vation, and  was  due  to  no  childish  propensity  to  think  everything 
abroad  better  than  anything  at  home.  Cobden  had  far  too  much 
integrity  of  understanding  to  yield  either  to  the  patriotic  bias,  or 
the  anti-patriotic  bias  ;  and  he  knew  able  men  when  he  saw  them, 
as  well  in  his  own  country  as  elsewhere. 

In  tlie  summer  of  the  previous  year  he  had,  in  one  of  his 
visits  to  London,  sought  the  acquaintance  of  some  of  the  promi- 
nent journalists  and  politicians,  and  he  wrote  down  his  impres- 
sions of  them. 

1  To  Miss  Cobden.     Sept.  3,  1838.  2  j^q  F.  C,     Oct.  6, 1838. 


92  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1837. 

"Yesterday," — this  was  in  June,  1837,  —  "we  went  along  with 
Cole  to  see  the  print-works  of  Surrey,  and  dined  with  Makepeace. 
The  day  before,  being  Sunday,  I  went  in  the  morning  to  hear 
Benson  (in  the  Temple  Church)  abuse  the  Dissenters  and  the 
Catholics,  and  compare  the  persecuted  Church  of  England  to  the 

ark  of  the  Israelites,  when  encompassed  by  the  Amalekites 

Then  I  went  to  the  Zoological  Gardens,  and  after  staying  there  till 
the  last  minute  I  accompanied  Cole  home  to  his  house,  and  dined 

and  slept On  Saturday  in  the  morning  I  was  at  the  Clubs ; 

was  introduced  to  Fonblanque  {Examiner),  Eintoul  {Spectator), 
Bowring,  Howard  Elphinstone,  etc.     In  the  evening  of  the  same 

day  I  dined  with  Hindley,  and  met , , ,  etc.,  etc.  [a 

party  of  north-country  members  of  Parliament  and  candidates.] 
They  are  a  sad  lot  of  soulless  louts,  and  I  was,  as  compared  with 
the  intellectual  atmosphere  of  the  morning,  precipitated  from  the 

temperature  of  blood-heat  down  to  zero I  have  not  seen 

C.  P.  Thomson.  I  have  left  my  card  and  address,  but  he  has 
not  noticed  it,  and  if  he  does  not  send,  I'll  not  call  again. 

"  I  hear  queer  accounts  of  our  Ptight  Hon.  Member ;  they  tell 
me  he  is  not  the  man  of  business  we  take  him  for.  We  shall 
see.  The  more  I  see  of  our  representatives  from  Lancashire,  the 
more  asharaed  I  feel  at  heing  so  served,  and  like  Falstaff'  I  begin  to 
dread  the  idea  of  going  through  Coventry  (for  at  Coventry  they 
are  generally  to  be  found)  with  such  a  crew.  I  suppose  you  will 
have  more  failures  by-and-by  amongst  the  people  at  Manchester 
and  Liverpool.  I  begin  now  to  fear  that  our  distress  will  be 
greater  and  more  permanent  than  I  had  expected  at  first.  It  will 
be  felt  here,  too,  for  some  time,  in  failures  amongst  those  old  mer- 
chant princes  who  are  princes  only  at  spending,  but  whose  get- 
tings  have  been  and  will  be  small  enough.  The  result  of  all  will 
be  that  Liverpool  and  Manchester  will  more  and  more  assume 
their  proper  rank  as  commercial  capitals.  London  must  content 
itself  with  a  gambling  trade  in  the  bills  drawn  by  those  places. 

"  I  have  had  invitations  without  end,  and  shall  if  I  stay  a  year 
still  be  in  request ;  but  too  much  talking  and  running  about  will 
not  suit  me,  and  I  am  resolved  to  turn  churlish  and  morose.     I 

have  seen,  through  S 's  friend  T ,  some  of  the  Urquhart 

party :  they  are  as  mad  as  ever.  I  have  called  upon  Roebuck, 
but  have  not  been  able  to  see  him."  ^ 

"  I  was  yesterday  introduced  to  Mrs.  and  Mr.  Grote  at  their 
house.  I  use  the  words  Mrs.  and  Mr.  because  she  is  the  greater 
politician  of  the  two.  He  is  a  mild  and  philosophical  man,  pos- 
sessing the  highest  order  of  moral  and  intellectual  endowments ; 
but  wanting  something  which  for  need  of  a  better  phrase  I  shall 

1  To  F.  Cohden.     June  6,  1837. 


^T.33.]  LIFE   IN   MANCHESTER,    1837-39.  93 

call  devil.  He  is  too  abstract  in  his  tone  of  reasoning,  and  does 
not  aim  to  influence  others  by  any  proof  excepting  that  of  ratio- 
cination;  tusy  musy,'as  Braham  calls  it,  he  is  destitute  of  Had 
she  been  a  man,  she  would  have  been  the  leader  of  a  party ;  he 
is  not  calculated  for  it. 

"  I  met  at  their  house  (which  by  the  way  is  the  great  resort  of 
all  that  is  clever  in  the  opposition  ranks)  Sir  W.  Molesworth,  a 
youthful,  florid-looking  man  of  foppish  and  conceited  air,  with  a 
pile  of  head  at  the  back  (firmness)  like  a  sugar-loaf  I  should 
say  that  a  cast  of  his  head  would  furnish  one  of  the  most  singu- 
lar illustrations  of  phrenology.  For  the  rest  he  is  not  a  man  of 
superior  talents,  and  let  him  say  what  he  pleases,  there  is  nothing 
about  him  that  is  democratic  in  principle 

"  I  have  been  visiting,  and  visited  by,  all  sorts  of  people,  the 
Greek  Ambassador,  Wm.  Allen,  of  Plough  Court,  the  chemist  and 
Quaker  philanthropist,  Eoebuck,  and  Joseph  Parkes,  of  Birming- 
ham, amongst  the  number.  I  spent  a  couple  of  hours  with  Roe- 
buck at  his  house.  He  is  a  clever  fellow,  but  I  find  that  his 
mind  is  more  active  than  powerful.  He  is  apt  to  take  lawyer- 
like views  of  questions,  and,  as  you  may  see  by  his  speeches,  is 
given  to  cavilling  and  special  pleading 

"  Easthope  of  the  '  Chronicle '  is  very  anxious  that  I  should  see 
Lord  Palmerston,  but  I  told  him  I  had  made  up  my  mind  that 
his  Lordship  is  incurable.  He  says  that  he  is  open  to  conviction, 
and  a  cleverer  man  than  most  of  his  colleagues.  What  a  beauti- 
ful ensemble  they  must  be  !  I  have  seen  nothing  of  C.  P.  Thom- 
son ;  I  would  have  called  again,  but  I  think  it  better  to  reserve 
myself  till  he  calls  on  me.  I  hear  from  all  sides  that  he  is  not 
the  man  of  business  we  take  him  for  in  Manchester.  Although 
I  have  been  so  much  taken  up  with  new  acquaintances,  I  have 
not  failed  to  make  calls  upon  all  our  old  friends  and  relations."  ^ 

"  One  of  the  very  cleverest  men  I  have  ever  met  with  is  Joseph 
Parkes,  late  of  Birmingham,  the  eminent  constitutional  lawyer 
and  writer.  He  was  employed  to  prepare  the  Municipal  Bill  and 
other  measures:  He  is  not  only  profound  in  his  profession,  but 
skilled  in  political  economy,  and  quite  up  to  the  spirit  of  the 
age  in  practical  and  popular  acquirements.  He  has  been  very 
civil  to  me.  He  received  a  letter  from  his  friend  Lord  Durham 
requesting  him  to  find  out  who  the  author  of  Russia,  etc.,  was,  as 
those  pamphlets  contained  more  statesmanlike  views  than  all  the 
heads  of  the  whole  British  cabinet.  His  Lordship  goes  thoroughly 
and  entirely  with  me  in  my  principles  upon  Turkey.  Perhaps 
the  truth  is  he  went  to  St.  Petersburg  with  opposite  views,  but 
having  been  wheedled  by  the  Czar  and  his  wife,  he  is  glad  to 

^  ToF.  Cohdcn.     June  12,  1837. 


94  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1838. 

find  in  my  arguments  some  useful  pleas  for  justifying  his 
change."  ^ 

One  general  impression  of  great  significance  Cobden  acquired 
from  this  and  some  later  visits'  to  London.  Combe  had  in  one  of 
his  letters  been  complaining  of  the  bigotry  with  which  he  had  to 
contend  in  Scotland.  "  What  you  say  of  the  intolerance  of  Scot- 
land," said  Cobden  to  him  in  reply,  "  applies  a  good  deal  to  Man- 
chester also.  There  is  but  one  place  in  the  kingdom  in  which  a 
man  can  live  with  perfect  freedom  of  thought  and  action,  and  that 
is  London."  ^  However,  he  acted  on  the  old  and  worthy  princi- 
ple. Spar  tarn  nactus  es,  hanc  exorna,  and  did  not  quarrel  with 
the  society  in  which  his  lot  was  cast,  because  it  preferred  the 
echoes  of  its  own  prejudices  to  any  unfamiliar  note. 

Manchester  did  not  receive  its  charter  of  incorporation  until 
the  autumn  of  1838.  Cobden's  share  in  promoting  this  impor- 
tant reform  was  recognized  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  new  borough, 
and  he  was  chosen  for  alderman  at  the  first  election.  The  com- 
mercial capital  of  Lancashire  was  now  to  show  its  fitness  to  be 
the  source  and  centre  of  a  great  national  cause. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  FOUNDATION  OF  THE  LEAGUE. 

The  French  economist  who  recounted  to  his  countrymen  the  history 
of  the  great  agitation  in  which  Cobden  now  gradually  rose  to  a 
foremost  place,  justly  pointed  out  that  the  name  and  title  of  the 

^  Anti-Corn- Law  League  gave  to  foreigners  a  narrow  and  inadequate 
idea  of  its  scope,  its  depth,  and  its  animating  spirit.  What  Bastiat 
thus  said  with  regard  to  foreigners,  is  just  as  true  with  regard  to 
ourselves  of  a  later  generation.  We  too  are  as  apt  as  Frenchmen 
or  Germans  to  think  narrowly  and  inadequately  of  the  scope  and 
animating  spirit  of  this  celebrated  confederation.  Yet  the  interest 
of  that  astonishing  record  of  zeal,  tact,  devotion,  and  courage,  into 
some  portions  of  which  the  biographer  of  Cobden  has  now  to  enter, 
lies  principally  for  us  in  the  circumstance  that  the  abolition  of  the 

V  protective  duties  on  food  and  the  shattering  of  the  protective 

1  The  Czar  said  to  Sir  Robert  Peel  : —  "Years  ago  Lord  Durham  was  sent  to 
me,  a  man  full  of  prejudices  against  me.  By  merely  coming  to  close  quarters  with 
me,  all  his  prejudices  were  driven  clean  out  of  him."  —  Stockmar,  quoted  in  Mr. 
Martin's  Life  af  the  Prince  Consort,  i.  216. 

2  To  G.' Combe.     March  9,  1841. 


iET.34.]  THE  FOUNDATION  OF  THE  LEAGUE.  95 

system  was,  on  one  side,  the  beginning  of  our  great  modern 
struggle  against  class  preponderance  at  home,  and  on  another  side, 
the  dawn  of  higher  ideals  of  civilization  all  over  the  world. 

It  was  not  of  himself  assuredly  that  Cobden  was  speaking  when, 
at  the  moment  of  the  agitation  reaching  its  height,  he  confessed  '^ 
that  when  it  first  began  they  had  not  all  possessed  the  same  com- 
prehensive view  of  the  interests  and  objects  involved,  that  came 
to  them  later.  "  I  am  afraid,"  he  said,  "  that  most  of  us  entered 
upon  this  struggle  with  the  belief  that  we  had  some  distinct  class--/ 
interest  in  the  question,  and  that  we  should  carry  it  by  a  manifes- 
tation of  our  will  in  this  district,  against  the  will  and  consent  of 
other  portions  of  the  community."  ^  There  was  in  this  nothing 
tliat  is  either  astonishing  or  discreditable.  The  important  fact  was 
that  the  class-interest  of  the  manufacturers  and  merchants  hap- 
pened to  fall  in  with  the  good  of  the  rest  of  the  community ;  while 
the  class-interest  against  which  they  were  going  up  to  do  battle  was 
an  uncompensated  burden  on  the  whole  commonwealth.  Besides 
this,  it  has  been  observed  on  a  hundred  occasions  in  history,  that 
a  good  cause  takes  on  in  its  progress  larger  and  unforeseen  ele- 
ments, and  these  in  their  turn  bring  out  the  nobler  feelings  of  the 
best  among  its  soldiers.  So  it  was  here.  The  class-interest  - 
Avidened  into  the  consciousness  of  a  commanding  national  interest. 
In  raising  the  question  of  tlie  bread-tax,  and  its  pestilent  effects  on 
their  own  trade  and  on  the  homes  of  their  workmen,  the  Lancashire 
men  were  involuntarily  opening  the  whole  question  of  the  condi- 
tion of  England. 

The  backbone  of  the  discussion  in  its  strictly  local  aspect  was  in 
the  question  which  Cobden  and  his  friends  at  this  time  kept  inces- 
santly asking.  With  a  population  increasing  at  the  rate  of  a  thou- 
sand souls  a  week,  how  can  wages  be  kept  up,  unless  there  be  con-  "^ 
stantly  increasing  markets  found  for  the  employment  of  labor ;  and 
how  can  foreign  countries  buy  our  manufactures,  unless  we  take  in 
return  their  corn,  timber,  or  whatever  else  they  are  able  to  produce  ? 
Apart,  moreover,  from  increase  of  population,  is  it  not  clear  that,  if 
capitalists  were  free  to  exchange  their  productions  for  the  corn  of 
other  countries,  the  workmen  would  have  abundant  employment 
at  enhanced  wages  ?  A  still  more  formidable  argument  even  than 
these  lay  in  the  mouths  of  the  petitioners.  They  boldly  charged 
Parliament  with  fostering  the  rivalry  of  foreign  competitors ; 
and  the  charge  could  not  be  answered.  By  denying  to  America 
and  to  Germany  the  liberty  of  exchanging  their  surplus  food  for 
our  manufactures,  the  English  Legislature  had  actually  forced 
America  and  Germany  to  divert  their  resources  from  the  produc- 
tion of  food,  in  order  to  satisfy  their  natural  demand  for  manufac- 

1  Speech  at  Manchester,  Oct.  19,  1843. 


96  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1838. 

tures.     It  was  the  corn  laws  which  nursed  foreign  competition  into 
full  vitality. 

But  this  strictly  commercial  aspect  could  not  suffice.  Moral 
ideas  of  the  relations  of  class  to  class  in  this  country,  and  of  the 
relations  of  country  to  country  in  the  civilized  world,  lay  behind 
the  contention  of  the  hour,  and  in  the  course  of  that  contention 
came  into  new  light.  The  promptings  of  a  commercial  shrewd- 
ness were  gradually  enlarged  into  enthusiasm  for  a  far-reaching 
principle,  and  the  hard-headed  man  of  business  gradually  felt  him- 
self touched  with  the  generous  glow  of  the  patriot  and  the  de- 
liverer. 

Cobden's  speculative  mind  had  speedily  placed  the  conflict  in 
its  true  relation  to  other  causes.  We  have  already  seen  how  ^mple 
a  conception  he  possessed  of  the  transformation  for  which  English 
society  was  ripe,  and  how  thoroughly  he  had  accustomed  himself 

v/  to  think  of  the  corn  laws  as  merely  part  of  a  great  whole  of  abuse 
and  obstruction.  But  lie  was  now,  as  at  all  times,  far  too  wise  a 
man  to  fall  into  the  characteristic  weakness  of  the  system-monger, 
by  passing  over  the  work  that  lay  to  his  hand,  and  insisting  that 
people  should  swallow  his  system  whole.  Nobody  knew  better 
how  great  a  part  of  wisdom  it  is  for  a  man  who  seeks  to  improve 
society,  to  be  right  in  discerning  at  a  given  moment  what  is  the 
next  thing  to  be  done,  or  whether  there  is  anything  to  be  done  at 
all.  His  interest  in  remoter  issues  did  not  prevent  him  from 
throwing  himself  with  all  the  energy  of  apostolic  spirit  upon  the 
particular  point  at  which  the  campaign  of  a  century  first  opened. 
As  he  said  to  his  brother  in  a  letter  that  has  already  been  quoted, 
he  had  convinced   himself  that   a  moral,  and  even  a  religious, 

^  spirit  might  be  infused  into  the  question  of  the  corn  laws,  and  that 
if  it  were  agitated  in  the  same  manner  as  the  old  question  of 
slavery,  the  effect  would  be  irresistible.^ 

Cobden  was  in  no  sense  the  original  projector  of  an  organized 

^  body  for  throwing  off  the  burden  of  the  corn  duties.  In  1836  an 
Anti-Corn-Law  Association  had  been  formed  in  London ;  its  prin- 
cipal members  were  the  parliamentary  radicals,  Grote,  Moleswortli, 
Joseph  Hume,  and  Mr.  Eoebuck.  But  this  group,  notwithstand- 
ing their  acuteness,  their  logical  penetration,  and  the  soundness  of 
their  ideas,  were  in  that,  as  in  so  many  other  matters,  stricken 
with  impotence.  Their  gifts  of  reasoning  were  admirable,  but 
they  had  no  gifts  for  popular  organization,  and  neither  their  per- 
sonality nor  their  logic  offered  anything  to  excite  the  imagination 
or  interest  the  sentiment  of  the  public.  "  The  free-traders,"  Lord 
Sydenham  said,  with  a  pang,  in  1841,  "  have  never  been  orators 
since  Mr.  Pitt's  early  days.     We  hammered  away  with  facts  and 

1  Above,  pp.  85,  86. 


.Ex.  34.]  THE   FOUNDATION   OF  THE   LEAGUE.  97 

figures  and  some  arguments  ;  but  we  could  not  elevate  the  subject 
and  excite  the  feelings  of  the  people."  An  economic  demonstra- 
tion went  for  nothing,  until  it  was  made  alive  by  the  passion  of  / 
suffering  interests  and  the  reverberations  of  the  popular  voice. 
Lord  Melbourne,  in  1838,  sharply  informed  all  petitioners  for  the 
repeal  of  the  corn  laws,  that  they  must  look  for  no  decided  action 
on  the  part  of  the  government,  until  they  had  made  it  quite  clear 
that  the  majority  of  the  nation  were  strongly  in  favor  of  a  new 
policy.  London,  from  causes  that  have  often  been  explained  and 
are  well  understood,  is  no  centre  for  the  kind  of  agitation  which 
the  Prime  Minister,  not  without  some  secret  mockery,  invited  the 
repealers  to  undertake.  Tn  London  there  is  no  effective  unity ; 
interests  are  too  varied  and  dispersive  ;  zeal  loses  its  directness  and 
edge  amid  the  distracting  play  of  so  many  miscellaneous  social  and 
intellectual  elements.  It  was  not  until  a  body  of  men  in  Man- 
chester were  moved  to  take  the  matter  in  hand,  that  any  serious 
attempt  was  made  to  inform  and  arouse  the  country. 

The  price  of  wheat  had  risen  to  seventy-seven  shillings  in  the 
August  of  1838 ;  there  was  every  prospect  of  a  wet  harvesting ; ' 
the  revenue  was  declining  ;  deficit  was  becoming  a  familiar  word ; 
pauperism  was  increasing ;  and  the  manufacturing  population  of 
Lancashire  were  finding  it  impossible  to  support  themselves,  be- 
cause the  landlords,  and  the  legislation  of  a  generation  of  land- 
lords before  them,  insisted  on  keeping  the  first  necessity  of  life  at 
an  artificially  high  rate.  Yet  easy  as  it  is  now  to  write  the  expla- 
nation contained  in  the  last  few  words,  comparatively  few  men  had 
at  that  time  seized  the  truth  of  it.  That  explanation  was  in  the 
stage  of  a  vague  general  suspicion,  rather  than  the  definite  per- 
ception of  a  precise  cause.  Men  are  so  engaged  by  the  homely 
pressure  of  each  day  as  it  comes,  and  the  natural  solicitudes  of 
common  life  are  so  instant,  that  a  bad  institution  or  a  monstrous 
piece  of  misgovernment  is  always  endured  in  patience  for  many 
years  after  the  remedy  has  been  urged  on  public  attention.  No 
cure  is  considered  with  an  accurate  mind,  until  the  evil  has  become 
too  sharp  to  be  borne,  or  its  whole  force  and  weight  brought 
irresistibly  before  the  world  by  its  more  ardent,  penetrative,  and 
indomitable  spirits. 

In  October,  1838,  a  band  of  seven  men  met  at  a  hotel  in  Man--^ 
Chester,  and   formed  a  new  Anti-Corn-Law  Association.      They 
were  speedily  joined  by  others,  including  Cobden,  who  from  this 
moment  began  to  take  a  prominent  part  in  all  counsel  and  action. 

That  critical  moment  had  arrived,  which  comes  in  the  history 
of  every  successful  movement,  when  a  section  arises  within  the 
party,  which  refuses  from  that  day  forward  either  to  postpone 
or  to  compromise.  The  feeling  among  the  older  men  was  to  stop 
short  in  their  demands  at  some  modification  of  the  existing  duty. 

7 


98  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1839. 

This  was  the  mind  of  the  President  and  most  of  the  directors  of 
the  Manchester  Chamber  of  Commerce.  A  meeting  of  this  im- 
portant body  was  held  in  December  (1838).  The  officers  of  the 
Chamber  had,  only  for  the  second  time  in  ten  years,  prepared 
a  petition  to  the  House  of  Commons,  but  the  petition  spoke  only 
of  modifications,  and  total  repeal  was  not  whispered.  The  more 
energetic  members  protested  against  these  faltering  voices. 
Cobden  struck  into  the  debate  with  that  finely  tempered  weapon 
of  argumentative  speech,  which  was  his  most  singular  endow- 
ment. The  turbid  sediment  of  miscellaneous  discussion  sank 
away,  as  he  brought  out  a  lucid  proof  that  the  corn  law  was  the 
only  obstacle  to  a  vast  increase  of  their  trade,  and  that  every 
shilling  of  the  protection  on  corn  which  thus  obstructed  their 
prosperity,  passed  into  the  pockets  of  the  landowners,  without 
conferring  an  atom  of  advantage  on  either  the  farmer  or  the 
laborer. 

The  meeting  was  adjourned,  to  the  great  chagrin  of  the  Pres- 
ident, and  when  the  members  assembled,  a  week  later,  Cobden 
drew  from  his  pocket  a  draft  petition  which  he  and  his  allies  had 
prepared  in  the  interval,  and  which  after  a  discussion  of  many 
hours  was  adopted  by  an  almost  unanimous  vote.  The  preamble 
laid  all  the  stress  on  the  alleged  facts  of  foreign  competition, 
in  words  which  never  fail  to  be  heard  in  times  of  bad  trade.  It 
recited  how  the  existing  laws  prevented  the  British  manufacturer 
from  exchanging  the  produce  of  his  labor  for  the  corn  of  other 
countries,  and  so  enabled  his  foreign  rivals  to  purchase  their  food 
at  one  half  of  the  price  at  which  it  was  sold  in  the  English 
market;  and  finally  the  prayer  of  the  petition  called  for  the 
repeal  of  all  laws  relating  to  the  importation  of  foreign  corn  and 
other  foreign  articles  of  subsistence,  and  implored  the  House  to 
carry  out  to  the  fullest  extent,  both  as  affects  manufactures  and 
agriculture,  the  true  and  peaceful  principles  of  free  trade. 

In  the  following  month,  January,  1839,  the  Anti-Corn-Law 
Association  showed  that  it  was  in  earnest  in  the  intention  to 
agitate,  by  proceeding  to  raise  a  subscription  of  an  effective  sum 
of  money.  Cobden  threw  out  one  of  those  expressions  which 
catch  men's  minds  in  moments  when  they  are  already  ripe  for 
action.  "  Let  us,"  he  said,  "  invest  part  of  our  property,  in  order 
to  save  the  rest  from  confiscation."  Within  a  month  six  thou- 
sand pounds  had  been  raised,  the  first  instalment  of  many  scores 
of  thousands  still  to  come.  A  great  banquet  was  given  to  some 
of  the  parliamentary  supporters  of  Free  Trade ;  more  money  was 
subscribed,  convictions  became  clearer,  and  purpose  waxed  more 
resolute.  •  On  the  day  after  the  banquet,  at  a  meeting  of  delegates 
from  other  towns,  Cobden  brought  forward  a  scheme  for  united 
action  among  the  various  associations  throughout  the  country. 


iET.  35.]        THE  FOUNDATION  OF  THE  LEAGUE.  99 

This  was  the  germ  of  what  ultimately  became  the  League.  It 
is  worth  noticing  that,  more  than  four  years  before  this,  he  had 
in  his  first  pamplilet  sketched  in  a  general  form  the  outlines  of  ^ 
the  course  eventually  followed  by  the  League,  —  so  fertile  was 
his  mind  in  practical  methods  of  enlightening  opinion,  even 
without  the  stimulation  of  a  company  of  sympathetic  agitators. 
There  he  had  asked  how  it  was  that  so  little  progress  had  been 
made  in  the  study  of  which  Adam  Smith  was  the  great  luminary, 
and  why,  while  there  were  Banksian,  Linnsean,  Hunterian  socie- 
ties, there  was  no  Smithian  society,  for  the  purpose  of  disseminat- 
ing a  more  just  knowledge  of  the  principles  of  trade.  Such 
a  society  might  enter  into  correspondence  with  similar  bodies 
abroad,  and  so  help  to  amend  the  restrictive  policy  of  foreign  v 
governments,  while  at  home  prizes  might  be  offered  for  the  best 
essays  on  the  corn  question,  and  lecturers  might  be  sent  to  en- 
lighten the  agriculturists,  and  to  invite  discussion  upon  a  sub- 
ject which,  while  so  difficult,  was  yet  of  such  paramount  interest 
to  them  and  to  the  rest  of  the  country.^  The  hour  for  the  par- 
tial application  of  these  very  ideas  had  now  come.  Before  the 
month  of  January,  the  Manchester  Anti-Corn-Law  Association  ^ 
was  completely  organized,  and  its  programme  laid  before  the 
public.  The  object  was  declared  to  be  to  obtain  by  all  legal  and 
constitutional  means,  such  as  the  formation  of  local  associations, 
the  delivery  of  lectures,  the  distribution  of  tracts,  and  the  pres- 
entation of  petitions  to  Parliament,  the  total  and  immediate 
repeal  of  the  corn  and  provision  laws.  Cobden  was  appointed 
to  be  a  member  of  the  executive  committee,  and  he  continued  I 
in  that  office  until  the  close  of  the  agitation. 

In  the  February  of  1839,  as  Cobden  gayly  reminded  a  great 
audience  on  the  eve  of  victory  six  years  later,  three  of  them  in  a 
small  room  at  Brown's  hotel  in  Palace  Yard  were  visited  by  a 
nobleman  who  had  taken  an  active  part  in  advocating  a  modifica- 
tion of  the  corn  laws,  but  who  could  not  bring  himself  to  the 
point  of  total  repeal.  He  asked  what  had  brought  them  to  town, 
and  what  it  was  that  they  wanted.  They  had  come,  they  said,  to 
seek  the  total  and  immediate  repeal  of  the  corn  laws.  With  an 
emphatic  shake  of  the  head,  he  answered,  "  You  will  overturn  the 
monarchy  as  soon  as  you  will  accomplish  that."  ^  For  the  mo- 
ment it  appeared  as  if  this  were  really  true.  Mr.  Villiers  moved 
in  the  House  of  Commons  (Feb.  18),  that  a  number  of  petitions 
against  the  corn  laws  should  be  referred  to  a  Committee  of  the 
w^hole  House.  The  motion  was  negatived  without  a  division. 
The  next  day  he  moved  that  certain  members  of  the  Manchester 
Association  should  be  heard  at  the  bar,  in  support  of  the  allega- 

1  Cobden's  Political  Writings,  i.  32. 

2  Cobden's  Sj[)eeches,  i.  345. 


100  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  •  [1839. 

tions  of  a  petition  which  they  had  presented  three  days  before. 
Though  this  was  a  Whig  Parliament,  or  because  it  was  a  Whig 
Parliament,  the  motion  was  thrown  out  by  a  majority  of  more 
than  two  to  one  in  a  House  of  more  than  five  hundred  members. 
We  cease  to  be  amazed  at  this  deliberate  rejection  of  informa- 
tion from  some  of  the  weightiest  men  in  the  kingdom,  at  one  of 
tlie  most  critical  moments  in  the  history  of  the  kingdom,  when 
we  recall  the  fact  that  notwithstanding  the  pretended  reform  of 
Parliament  in  1832,  four  fifths  of  the  members  of  the  House  of 
Conmions  belonged  to  the  old  landed  interests.  The  bewilder- 
ment of  the  government  was  shown  by  the  fact  that  Lord  John 
Eussell  and  Lord  Palmerston  went  into  the  lobby  with  the  Pro- 
tectionists, while  tlie  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade  followed 
Mr.  Villiers.  Yet  Lord  John  had  declared  a  short  time  before, 
that  he  admitted  the  duties  on  corn  as  then  levied  to  be  untenable. 
The  whole  incident  is  one  of  the  most  striking  illustrations  on 
record  of  one  of  the  worst  characteristics  of  parliamentary  govern- 
ment, its' sluggishness  in  facing  questions  on  their  merits.  In  this 
instance,  the  majority  found  before  long  that  behind  the  industrial^ 
■ftcts  which  they  were  too  selfish  and  indolent  to  desire  to  hear, 
were  political  forces  which  they  and  their  leader  together  were 
powerless  to  resist. 

A  few  days  later  (March  12)  Mr.  Villiers  brought  forward  his 
annual  motion,  that  the  House  should  resolve  itself  into  committee 
to  take  into  consideration  the  act  regulating  the  importation  of 
foreign  corn.  Across  Palace  Yard  were  assembled  delegates  from 
the  thirty-six  principal  towns  in  the  kingdom,  to  enforce  a  prayer 
that  had  been  urged  by  half  a  million  of  petitioners.  But  the 
motion,  after  a  debate  which  extended  over  five  nights,  received 
only  one  hundred  and  ninety-seven  votes  out  of  a  House  of  five 
hundred  and  forty-one.  The  delegates  returned  to  their  homes 
with  the  conviction  that  they  had  still  a  prolonged  struggle  before 
them.  In  the  picturesque  phrase  of  a  contemporary  writer,  their 
departure  was  like  the  break-up  of  a  Mahratta  camp ;  it  did  not 
mean  that  the  war  was  over,  but  only  that  attack  would  be  re- 

^  newed  from  another  quarter.  Some  of  them  were  inclined  to 
despond,  but  the  greater  part  almost  instantly  came  round  to  the 

^1  energetic  mind  of  Cobden.  He  recalled  the  delegates  to  the  fact 
that,  in  spite  of  the  House  over  the  way,  they  represented  three 
millions  of  the  people.  He  compared  the  alliance  of  the  great 
towns  of  England  to  the  League  of  the  Hanse  Towns  of  Germany. 
That  League  had  turned  the  castles  which  crowned  the  rocks 
along  the  Khine,  the  Danube,  and  the  Elbe  into  dismantled  me- 
morials of  the  past,  and  the  new  league  would  not  fail  in  disman- 
tling the  legislative  stronghold  of  the  new  feudal  oppressors  in 
England.     No  time  was  lost  in  strengthening  their  organization 


J:t.35.]  -the   foundation   of  the   LEuiGUE.'    ■    •  101 

by  drawing  isolated  societies  to  an  effective  centre.  Measures 
were  speedily  taken  (March)  for  the  formation  of  a  permanent 
union,  to  be  called  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League,  to  be  composed  of 
all  the  towns  and  districts  that  were  represented  in  the  delegation, 
and  of  as  many  others  as  might  be  induced  to  form  local  associa- 
tions and  federate  them  with  the  League.  The  executive  com- 
mittee of  the* old  Manchester  An ti- Corn-Law  Association  was  trans- 
formed into  the  council  of  the  new  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  With 
the  same  view  of  securing  unity  of  action,  the  central  offices  were 
established  in  Manchester,  whence  from  this  time  forward  the 
national  movement  was  directed. 

The  impatience  of  the  free-traders  had  been  irritated,  rather 
than  soothed,  by  a  speech  of  two  hours  in  length  from  the  great 
lea'ctSmrf-tire'^-Btmservatlve  opposition,  in  which  he  carefully  ab- 
stained from  committing  himself  to  any  opinion  on  the  principle 
at  issue.  He  devised  elaborate  trains  of  hypothetical  reasoning  ; 
he  demolished  imaginary  cases ;  he  dwelt  on  the  irreconcilable 
contradictions  among  the  best  economists.  But  there  was  not  a 
single  sentence  in  the  whole  of  Sir  Kobert  Peel's  speech,  that 
could  be  taken  to  tie  his  hands  in  dealing  with  the  corn  lawf,- 
while  on  the  contrary  there  was  one  sentence  which,  to  any  one 
who  should  have  accustomed  himself  to  study  the  workings  of 
that  strong  but  furtive  intellect,  might  have  revealed  that  the 
great  organ  and  chief  of  the  landowners  was  not  far  removed  from 
the  Manchester  manufacturer.  He  had  at  least  placed  himself  in 
the  mental  attitude  which  made  him  accessible  to  their  arijuments. 
"I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying," — so  Sir  Eobert  Peel  told  the  House, 
—  "  that  unless  the  existence  of  the  corn  law  can  be  shown  to  be 
consistent,  not  only  with  the  prosperity  of  agriculture  and  the 
maintenance  of  the  landlord's  interest,  but  also  with  the  protec- 
tion and  the  maintenance  of  the  general  interests  of  the  country, 
and  especially  with  the  improvement  of  the  condition  of  the 
laboring  class,  the  corn  law  is  practically  at  an  end."^ 
,  Although  such  a  position  was  rational  and  political,  as  com- 
pared with  the  talk  of  those  who  could  not  get  beyond  the  argu- 
ment that  the  proprietors  of  the  soil  had  a  right  to  do  as  they 
pleased  with  their  own,  still  there  remained  a  long  road  to  travel 
before  Peel  could  be  regarded  as  a  probable  auxiliary.  The  re- 
pealers felt  that  they  must  depend  upon  their  own  efforts,  without 
reference  either  to  Sir  Robert  or  Lord  John.  They  had  started  a 
little  organ *of  their  own  in  the  press  in  April;  and  the  Anti- 
Corn-Law  Circular  used  language  which  was  not  at  all  too  strong 
for  the  taste  of  most  of  them,  when  it  cried  out  that  all  political 
factions  were  equally  dishonest  and  profligate  ;  that  the  repealers 

1  March  18,  1839. 


102  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1839. 

at  any  rate  would  not  suffer  their  great  question  to  be  made  a 
mere  official  hobby-horse  ;  tliat  they  would  pursue  an  undeviating 
course  of  strenuous  protest  to  the  nation  at  large,  knowing  -well 
that  repeal  would  never  be  granted  by  either  the  one  qr  thd  other 
faction  of  political  pettifoggers  by  which  ihe  kingdom  was  alter-" 
nately  cursed.  If  they  could  only  get  the  honest,  simple-hearted, 
and  intelligent  portion  of  the  people  to  see  the  justice  and  the 
necessity  of  their  cause,  then  they  would  not  be  long  before  they 
dragged  both  sections  of  the  state  quacks  at  their  chariot  wheels, 
each  striving  to  outbid  the  other  in  tenders  of  service  and  offers 
of  concession.^ 

In  less  violent  tones,  Cobden  kept  insisting  on  the  same  point, 
after  the  rebuffs  of  the  year  had  shown  them  that  the  battle  would 
be  long,  and  that  its  issues  went  too  deep  into  the  social  system 
to  suit  the  aims  of  traditional  parties,  for  the  traditional  parties 
in  England  were  of  their  very  essence  superficial  and  personal. 
Towards  the  end  of  1839,  Dr.  Bo  wring  came  to  Manchester  to  re- 
port on  what  he  had  found  on  the  subject  of  trade  with  England 
during  a  recent  official  visit  to  the  countries  of  the  German  Cus- 
toms Union.  His  points  were,  that  in  consequence  of  the  English 
obstruction  to  the  import  of  grain  and  timber,  capital  in  Germany 
was  being  diverted  to  manufactures ;  that  the  German  agricul- 
turists were  naturally  eager  for  the  removal  of  the  protective  duties 
on  manufactures,  which  they  could  purchase  more  cheaply  from 
England ;  but  that  they  were  met  by  the  argument  that  England 
would  never  reciprocate  by  opening  a  free  market  for  return  pur- 
chases of  grain,  as  her^  landlords  and  agriculturists  were  far  too 
mighty  to  be  overthrown  or  even  shaken.  Cobden,  with  his  usual 
high  confidence  of  spirit,  ...replied  to  this  by  asking  how  every 
social  change  and  every  religious  change  had  been  accomplished 
otherwise  than  by  an  appeal  to  public  opinion.  How,  he  exclaimed, 
had  they  secured  the  penny  postage,  which  happened  to  haye  come 
into  force  on  the  very  day  of  the  meeting  ?  Not  by  sitting  still 
and  quietly  wishing  for  it,  but  by  a  number  of  men  stepping  out, 
spending  their  money,  giving  their  time,  agitating  the  commu- 
nity. And  in  the  same  way,  how  could  they  think  that  the  corn 
laws  would  be  repealed  by  sitting  still  at  home,  and  lamenting 
over  their  evils  ?  He  appealed  to  them,  not  as  Whigs,  Tories,  or 
Radicals,  but  as  men  with  a  sense  not  more  of  commercial  interest 
than  of  unmistakable  national  duty. 

We  have  to  remember  that  at  this  date  the  admission  of  Cath- 
olics to  Parliament  was  not  so  remote  that  men  had  forgotten 
the  means  by  which  that  triumph  of  justice  and  tolerance  had 
been  achieved.     Catholic  emancipation  was  only  ten  years  old, 

1  December  10,  1839. 


^T.  35.]  THE   FOUNDATION   OF  THE   LEAGUE.  103 

and  it  was  present  to  the  mind  of  every  politician  who  wanted  to 
have  anything  done,  that  this  great  measure  had  been  carried  by 
the-  incessant  activity  of  O'Connell  and  the  Catholic  Association. 
Tliat'was  a  memorable  example  that  the  prejudice  of  the  govern- 
ing classes  was  to  be, -most  effectually  overcome  by  the  agita- 
tion of  a  powerful  outside  confederacy.  No  two  men  were  ever 
much  more  unlike  than  Cobden  and  O'Connell,  but  Cobden  had 
been  a  subscriber  to  the  great  agitator's  Rent,  and  we  may  be  sure 
that  the  Irish  example  was  not  lost  on  the  leaders  of  the  associa- 
tion agjainst  the  corn  laws.  In  truth  here  was  the  vital  chan<ie 
'that  had  been  finally  effected  in  our  system  by  the  Reform  Act. 
Schemes  of  political  improvement  were  henceforth  to  spring  up 
outside  of  Parliament,  instead  of  in  the  creative  mind  of  the  par- 
liamentary leader ;  and  official  statesmanship  has  ever  since  con- 
sisted less  in  working  out  principles,  than  in  measuring  the  force 
and  direction  of  the  popular  gale.  It  is  thus  the  non-official 
statesman  who,  by  concentrating  the  currents  of  common  senti- 
ment or  opinion,  really  shapes  the  policy  which  the  official  chiefs 
accept  from  his  hands. 

The  first  year's  campaign  convinced  the  repealers  that  agitation 
is  not  always  such  smooth  work  as  it  had  been  in  Ireland.  •  They 
learnt  how  hardly  an  old  class  interest  dies.  They  had  begun 
the  work  of  propagandism  by  sending  out  a  small  band,  which 
afterwards  became  a  large  one,  of  economic  missionaries.  In 
Scotland  the  new  gospel  found  a  temperate  hearing  and  much 
acceptance,  but  in  England  the  lecturers  were  not  many  days  in 
discovering  at  what  peril  they  had  undertaken  to  assault  the  preju- 
dice and  selfishness  of  a  territorial  aristocracy,  and  the  brutality 
or  cowardice  (Jf  their  hangers-on.  Though  there  were  many 
districts  where  nobody  interfered  with  them,  there  were  many 
others  where  neither  law  nor"  equity  gave  them  protection.  At 
Arundel  the  mayor  refused  the  use  of  the  town  hall,  on  the  ground 
that  the  lecture  would  make  the  laborers  discontented ;  and  the 
landlord  refused  the  use  of  his  large  room,  on  the  ground  that,  if 
he  granted  it,  he  should  lose  his  customers.  A  landowning  farmer 
went  further,  and  offered  a  bushel  of  wheat  to  anybody  who  would, 
throw  the  lecturer  into  the  river.  At  Petersfield,  a  paltry  little' 
borough  in  Hampshire,  almost  in  sight  of  Cobden's  birthplace, 
either  spite  or  the  timidity  of  political  bondage  went  so  far,  that 
when  the  lecturer  returned,  after  his  harangue  in  the  market- 
place, to  the  Dolphin,  Boar,  or  Lion,  where  he  had  taken  his  tea 
and  ordered  his  bed,  the  landlord  and  landlady  peremptorily 
desired  him  to  leave  their  house.  In  the  eastern  counties,  again, 
they  were  usually  well  received  by  the  common  people,  but  vexed 
and  harassed  by  the  authorities.  At  Louth  they  were  allowed  to 
deliver  their  address  in  the  town  haU  one  night,  but  as  the  lee- 


104  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1839. 

turer  had  the  fortune  to  discomfit  a  local  magnate  in  the  discus- 
sion which  followed,  the  permission  which  had  been  given  to  use 
the  hall  on  the  next  night  was  arbitrarily  withdrawn,  and  the 
lecturers  were  driven  to  say  what  they  had  come  to  say  from  a 
gig  in  the  market-place.  Nor  was  this  the  end  of  the  adventure. 
As  they  were  about  to  leave  the  town,  they  were  served  with  a 
warrant  for  causing  an  obstruction  in  a  thoroughfare ;  they  were 
brought  before  the  very  magnate  over  whom  they  had  won  so 
fatal  a  victory,  and  by  him  punished  with  a  fine.  *  At  Stamford 
they  were  warned  that  the  mob  would  tear  them  to  pieces ;  but 
they  protected  themselves  with  a  body-guard,  and  the  mob  was 
discovered  to  be  less  hostile  than  a  small  band  of  people  who 
ought  to  have  deserved  the  name  of  respectable.  At  Huntingdon 
the  town  clerk  was  the  leader  in  provoking  an  outrageous  disturb- 
ance, which  forced  the  lecturer  to  give  up  the  ground.  In  the 
Duke  of  Newcastle's  country,  at  Newark  and  at  Eetford,  there 
was  not  an  innkeeper  who  dared  to  let  the  lecturer  a  room  ;  and 
at  Worksop,  not  only  could  the  lecturer  not  find  a  room,  nor  a 
printer  who  should  dare  to  print  a  placard,  but  he  was  assaulted 
by  hired  bullies  in  the  street.  It  was  reserved  for  a  seat  of  learn- 
ing to  show  that  no  brutality  can  equal  that  which  is  engendered 
of  the  union  of  the  violent  inherited  prejudice  of  the  educated 
classes,  with  the  high  spirits  of  youth.  No  creature  is  a  more 
unbridled  ruffian  than  the  ruffian  undergraduate  can  be,  and  at 
Cambridge  the  peaceful  arguments  of  the  lecturer  were  inter- 
rupted by  a  destructive  and  sanguinary  riot.  The  local  newspaper 
afterwards  piously  congratulated  the  furious  gownsmen  on  having 
done  their  duty  as  "  the  friends  of  good  government,  and  the  up- 
holders of  the  religious  institutions  of  the  country."  ^ 

It  is  only  when  people  want  to  get  something  done  that  all  the 
odd  perversities  of  the  human  mind  spread  themselves  out  in 
panoramic  fulness.  A  long  campaign  of  reckless  and  virulent 
calumny  was  at  once  opened  in  the  party  organs.  One  London 
newspaper  described  the  worst  members  of  the  Association  as 
unprincipled  schemers,  and  the  best  as  self-conceited  socialists. 
Another  declared  with  authority  that  it  was  composed  in  equal 
parts  of  commercial  swindlers  and  political  swindlers.  A  third 
with  edifying  unction  'denounced  their  sentiments  as  subversive 
of  all  moral  right  and  order,  their  organization  as  a  disloyal  fac- 
tion, and  their  speakers  as  revolutionary  emissaries,  whom  all 
peaceable  and  well-disposed  persons  ought  to  assist  the  authorities 
in  peremptorily  putting  down.  The  Morning  Post,  the  journal  of 
London  idleness,  hailed  the  Manchester  workers  in  a  style  that 
would  have  been  grotesque  enough,  if  only  it  had  not  represented 

1  May  14,  1839. 


^T.35.]  THE  FOUNDATION   OF  THE   LEAGUE.  105 

the  serious  thought  of  many  of  the  most  important  people  in  the 
dominant  class.  "  The  manufacturing  peo})le  exclaim,  '  Why 
should  we  not  be  permitted  to  exchange  the  produce  of  our  in- 
dustry for  the  greatest  quantity  of  food  which  that  industry  will 
anywhere  command  ? '  To  which  we  answer,  why  not,  indeed  ? 
Who  hinders  you  ?  Take  your  manufactures  away  with  you  by 
all  means,  and  exchange  them  anywhere  you  will  from  Tobolsk 
to  Timbuctoo.  If  nothing  will  serve  you  but  to  eat  foreign  corn, 
away  with  you,  you  and  your  goods,  and  let  us  never  see  you 
more  ! "  This  was  a  quarter  from  which  the  language  of  simple- 
tons was  to  be  expected,  but,  as  the  repealers  had  a  thousand 
opportunities  of  discovering  within  the  next  seven  years,  the 
language  of  simpletons  has  many  dialects.  One  of  the  lowest 
perversions  of  the  right  sense  of  place  and  proportion  in  things, 
was  reached  by  those  who  cried  out  angrily  that  the  great  and 
decisive  test  for  candidates  at  the  next  general  election  would  not 
be  corn  laws  or  anti-corn-laws,  but  "  How  are  your  views  on  the 
Sabbath  question  ? "  The  Chartists,  of  whom  we  shall  say  some- 
thing in  another  chapter,  began  a  long  course  of  violent  hostility 
by  trying  at  the  very  outset  of  the  agitation  to  break  up  a  meet- 
ing at  Leeds,  insisting  that  the  movement  was  a  cheat  put  on  the 
work-people  of  the  country  by  cunning  and  rapacious  employers. 
Even  in  places  where  so  much  strong  political  intelligence  existed 
as  at  Birmingham,  members  of  the  town  council  of  the  borough 
were  found  to  talk  about  "  the  interested  movements  of  the  Whig 
corn  law  intriguers,"  and  to  urge  that  the  discussion  of  the  corn 
laws  was  merely  a  Whig  device  to  embarrass  the  patriotic  cham- 
pions of  parliamentary  reform.^  Of  all  this  the  Leaguers  heard 
much  more,  and  from  more  troublesome  people,  in  the  years  to 
come. 

Meanwhile  the  information  which  their  lecturers  brought  back 
to  head-quarters  at  Manchester,  as  to  the  state  of  some  of  the 
rural  districts,  inspired  the  leaders  of  the  agitation  with  new  zeal, 
and  a  stronger  conviction  of  the  importance  of  their  cause.  In 
Devonshire  they  found  that  the  wages  of  the  laborers  were  from 
seven  to  nine  shillings  a  week;  that  they  seldom  saw  meat  or 
tasted  milk  ;  and  that  their  chief  food  was ,  a  compost  of  ground 
barley  and  potatoes.  It  was  little  wonder  that,  in  a  county  where 
such  was  the  condition  of  labor,  the  lecturer  was  privately  asked 
by  poor  men  at  the  roadside  if  he  could  tell  them  where  the  fight- 
ing was  to  be.  Nor  need  we  doubt  that  he  was  speaking  the 
simple  truth  when  he  reported  that,  though  ignorant  of  Chartism 
as  a  political  question,  the  great  mass  of  the  population  of  Devon 
were  just  as  ready  for  pikes  and  pistols,  as  the  most  excitable 

1  Buuce's  History  of  the  Corporation  of  Birmingham^  i.  166,  167. 


106  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1839. 

people  of  the  factory  towns.  In  Somersetshire  the  budget  of  a 
laborer,  his  wife,  and  five  children  under  ten  years  of  age,  was  as 
follows.  Half  a  bushel  of  wheat  cost  four  shillings ;  for  grinding, 
baking,  and  barm,  sixpence ;  firing,  sixpence ;  rent,  eighteen 
pence;  leaving,  out  of  the  total  earnings  of  seven  shillings,  a 
balance  of  sixpence,  out  of  which  to  provide  the  family  with 
clothing,  potatoes,  and  all  the  other  necessaries  and  luxuries  of 
human  existence. 

With  facts  like  these  before  them,  the  Leaguers  read  with  mock- 
ery the  idyllic  fustian  in  which  even  the  ablest  men  of  the  land- 
lord party  complacently  indulged  their  feeling  for  the  picturesque. 
Sir  James  Graham,  in  resisting  Mr.  Villiers's  motion  this  year, 
spoke  of  the  breezy  call  of  incense-breathing  morn,  the  neat 
thatched  cottage,  the  blooming  garden,  the  cheerful  village  green. 
The  repeal  of  the  corn  laws  would  lead  to  a  great  migration  from 
all  this  loveliness  to  the  noisy  alley,  and  the  "  sad  sound  of  the 
factory  bell."  "  Tell  not  to  me  any  more,"  the  orator  called  out 
in  a  foolish  ecstasy,  "  of  the  cruelties  of  the  conveyance  of  the 
Poles  to  the  wintry  wastes  of  Siberia;  talk  not  to  me  of  the  trans- 
portation of  the  Hill  Coolies  from  Coromandel  to  the  Mauritius ; 
a  change  is  contemplating  by  some  members  of  this  House,  far 
more  cruel,  far  more  heart-rending,  in  the  bosom  of  our  native 
land."  ^  If  this  nonsense  was  the  vein  of  so  able  a  man  as  Gra- 
ham, we  may  infer  the  depths  of  prejudice  and  fallacy  down  into 
which  Cobden  and  his  allies  had  to  follow  less  sensible  people. 
And  the  struggle  had  hardly  begun.  The  landlords  were  not  yet 
awakened  into  consciousness  that  this  time  the  Manchester  men 
were  in  earnest,  and  resolutely  intended  to  raise  the  country  upon 
them.  They  still  believed  that  the  corn  laws  were  as  safe  as  the 
monarchy;  and  many  months  passed  before  they  realized  that  the 
little  group  who  now  met  several  times  in  each  week  in  a  dingy 
room  on  an  upper  floor  at  Newall's  Buildings  in  Market  Street  in 
Manchester,  were  not  to  be  daunted  either  by  bad  divisions  in 
Parliament,  or  bad  language  in  the  newspapers,  because  they  had 
become  fired  by  the  conviction  that  what  they  were  fighting 
against  was  not  merely  a  fiscal  blunder,  but  a  national  iniquity. 

Cobden  lived  at  this  time,  along  with  his  brothers  and  sisters, 
in  a  large  house  in  Quay  Street,  which  he  had  bought  very  shortly 
after  settling  in  Manchester,  and  which  was  known  to  the  next 
generation  as  Owens  College.  His  business  was  in  a  flourishing 
condition,  and  it  would  have  saved  him  from  many  a  day  of  misery 
if  he  could  have  been  content  to  leave  it  as  it  was.  It  was  from 
no  selfish  or  personal  motive  that  he  now  proceeded  to  make  a 

1  March  15,  1839. 


iET.35.]  [THE   FOUNDATION   OF  THE   LEAGUE.  107 

change  in  the  arrangements.  The  reader  has  already  seen  how  at 
the  beginning  of  his  career  Cobden  affectionately  insisted  with 
his  brother,  "  that  you  will  henceforth  consider  yourself  as  by 
right  my  associate  in  all  the  favors  of  fortune."  And  it  was  in 
the  interest  of  Frederick  Cobden  and  his  two  younger  brothers 
that  he  now  broke  up  the  existing  partnership.  The  firm  had 
previously  consisted  of  five  members,  carrying  on  business  under 
three  titles ;  one  at  the  warehouse  in  Watling  Street  in  London ; 
the  second,  at  the  print-works  at  Sabden ;  the  third,  specifically 
known  as  Richard  Cobden  and  Company,  at  Manchester  and 
Crosse  Hall,  near  Chorley  in  Lancashire.  Frederick  Cobden  was 
not  a  member  of  any  of  these  allied  firms,  and  there  seems  to 
have  been  no  willingness  to  make  room  for  him.  At  the  end  of 
July,  1839,  Cobden  withdrew  from  his  old  partners.  He  left 
them  to  carry  on  the  London  warehouse  and  the  Sabden  print- 
works on  their  own  account.  He  then  proceeded  himself  to  form 
a  new  partnership  with  Frederick  Cobden,  to  carry  on  the  Man- 
chester warehouse  and  the  print-works  at  Crosse  Hall.  This  was 
the  arrangement  of  Cobden's  business  during  the  six  years  of 
agitation  against  the  Corn  Laws. 

Though  his  motive  in  making  the  change  was  the  desire  to 
raise  the  position  of  his  elder  brother  at  once,  and  to  pave  the 
way  for  his  younger  brother  in  the  future,  yet  Cobden  had  no 
doubt  convinced  himself  that  the  change  was  sound  and  prudent 
in  itself.  A  less  sanguine  man  would  have  found  the  altered 
conditions  formidable.  In  the  business  which  he  left,  though  he 
did  not  find  himself  in  entire  sympathy  with  one  of  the  London 
partners,  all  had  been  managed  with  the  greatest  exactitude,  and 
there  had  been  abundance  of  capital  in  proportion  to  the  extent 
of  the  business.  At  Crosse  Hall  he  found  himself  much  less 
favorably  placed.  He  was  thrown  entirely  on  his  own  unaided 
resources,  for  his  letters  show  that  Frederick  Cobden,  with  all  his 
excellent  qualities,  yet  was  one  of  the  men  who  mistake  feverish 
anxiety  for  business-like  caution,  and  then  suppose  that  they 
repair  the  errors  of  timidity  by  moments  of  hurried  action.  In- 
stead of  coming  into  a  factory,  like  the  works  at  Sabden,  perfectly 
organized  and  superintended  by  an  experienced  eye,  Cobden  had 
now  to  find  a  new  staff,  and  what  was  perhaps  at  least  as  arduous, 
he  had  to  find  new  capital,  and  to  earn  interest  as  well  as  profit 
from  its  working. 

He  had,  moreover,  so  early  as  1835  made  speculative  purchases 
of  land  in  various  quarters  of  Manchester,  where  his  too  cheerful 
vision  discovered  a  measureless  demand  for  houses,  shops,  and 
factories,  as  soon  as  ever  the  corn  duty  should  be  repealed,  and 
the  springs  of  industrial  enterprise  set  free.  For  five  and  twenty 
years  waste  spaces  between  Victoria  Park  and  Rusholme,  in  Quay 


108  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1840. 

Street,  and  Oxford  Street,  bore  melancholy  testimony  to  a  mis- 
calculation ;  and  for  five  and  twenty  years  Cobden  paid  a  thousand 
pounds  a  year,  in  the  shape  of  chief  rent,  for  a  property  which 
thus  brought  him  not  a  shilling  of  return.  In  spite  of  the  grave 
drawbacks  which  I  have  named,  it  is  not  doubted  by  those  who 
have  the  best  means  of  knowing,  that  the  new  firm  w^as  for  some 
time  reasonably  successful,  and  was  even  visited  by  gleams  of 
genuine  prosperity.  But  the  undertaking  was  hardly  launched, 
before  its  chief  was  drawn  away  from  effective  interest  in  it  by  a 
strong  vocation,  which  he  could  not  resist,  to  be  the  leader  of  the 
great  national  cause  of  the  time. 

Meanwhile,  within  a  few  months  of  the  resettlement  of  his 
business,  he  took  another  momentous  step  in  marrying  (May, 
1840).  His  wife  was  Miss  Catherine  Anne  Williams,  a  young 
Welsh  lady,  wdiose  acquaintance  he  had  made  as  a  school  friend 
of  one  of  his  sisters.  She  is  said  by  all  who  knew  her  to  have 
been  endowed  with  singular  personal  beauty,  and  with  manners 
of  perfect  dignity  and  charm.  "Whether  in  Cobden's  case  this! 
union  w^as  preceded  by  much  deliberation,  we  do  not  know ; 
perhaps  experience  shows  that  the  profoundest  deliberation  in 
choosing  a  wife  is  little  better  than  the  cleverness  of  people  who 
boast  of  a  scientific  secret  of  winning  in  a  lottery.  Although 
marriage  is  usually  so  much  the  most  important  element  in 
deciding  whether  a  life  shall  be  heaven  or  hell,  it  is  that  on  which  \j 
in  any  given  instance  it  is  least  proper  for  a  stranger  to  speak.  _J 

It  would  seem  that  to  be  the  wife  of  a  prominent  public  man 
is  not  always  an  easy  lot.  As  Goethe's  Leonora  says  of  men  and 
women :  — 

Ihr  strebt  nach  fernen  Giitern, 
Und  euer  Streben  muss  gewaltsam  seyn. 
Ihr  wagt  es,  fiir  die  Ewigkeit  zu  handeln, 
Wenn  wir  ein  einzig  nah  beschianktes  Gut 
Auf  dieser  Erde  nur  besitzen  mochten, 
Und  wiinschen  dass  es  uns  bestandig  bliebe.^ 

If  the  champion  of  great  causes  has  to  endure  the  loss  of 
domestic  companionship,  he  is  at  least  compensated  by  patriotic 
satisfaction  in  the  result ;  but  unless  the  woman  be  of  more  than 
common  strength  of  public  zeal,  th6  thousand  lonely  days  and 
nights  and  all  the  swarm  of  undivided  household  cares  may  well- 
put  temper  and  spirits  to  a  sharp  strain.  In  the  last  year  of 
Cobden's  life,  as  he  and  Mrs.  Cobden  were  coming  up  to  London 
from  their  home  in  the  country,  Mrs.  Cobden  said  to  him,  —  "I 
sometimes  think  that,  after  all  the  good  work  that  you  have  done, 
and  in  spite  of  fame  and  great  position,  it  would  have  been  better 

1  "Ye  strive  for  far-off  goals,  and  strenuous  your  battle.  For  immortality  to 
toil,  do  you  aspire.  But  we  one  single  narrow  good,  and  that  nigh  to  us,  would 
fain  possess  upon  this  earth,  and  only  ask  that  it  should  steadfast  dwell." 


iET.  36.]  THE   CORN   LAWS.  109 

for  US  both  if,  after  you  and  I  married,  we  had  gone  to  settle  in 
the  backwoods  of  Canada."  And  Cobden  could  only  say,  after 
looking  for  a  moment  or  two  with  a  gaze  of  mournful  preoccupa- 
tion through  the  window  of  the  carriage,  that  he  was  not  sure 
that  what  she  said  was  not  too  true.  But  in  1840  evil  days  had 
not  yet  come,  and  as  they  took  their  summer  wedding  trip  through 
France,  Savoy,  Switzerland,  and  Germany,  Cobden  had  as  good 
right  as  any  mortal  can  ever  have  to  look  forward  to  a  future  of 
material  prosperity,  domestic  happiness,  and  honest  service  to  his 
country. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

THE   CORN   LAWS. 

It  will  perhaps  not  be  inconvenient  if  I  here  pause  in  my 
narrative,  to  introduce  a  short  parenthesis  setting  forth  what 
actually  were  the  nature  and  working  of  the  Corn  Laws  at  this 
time.  Their  destruction  was  the  one  finished  triumph  with  which  ^ 
Cobden's  name  is  associated.  The  wider  doctrines  which  he  tried 
to  impress  upon  men  still  await  the  seal  of  general  acceptance ; 
but  it  is  a  tolerably  safe  prophecy  that  no  English  statesman  will 
ever  revive  a  tax  upon  bread. 

Cobden  was  much  too  careful  a  student  of  the  facts  of  his 
question  to  fall  into  the  error  of  the  declaimers  on  his  own  side, 
who  assumed  that  none  but  the  owners  of  the  soil  had  ever  claimed  v 
protection  by  law  for  their  industry.  In  the  first  number  of  the 
little  organ  which  was  issued  by  the  Association,^  he  wrote  a 
paper  on  the  modern  history  of  the  Corn  Laws,  which  began  by 
plainly  admitting,  what  it  would  have  been  childish  to  deny,  that 
down  to  1820  manufacturers  probably  enjoyed  as  ample  a  share  v 
of  legislative  protection  as  the  growers  of  corn.  Huskisson's 
legislation  from  1823  to  1825  reduced  the  tariff  of  duties  upon 
almost  every  article  of  foreign  manufacture.  This  stamped  that 
.date,  in  Cobden's  words,  as  the  era  of  a  commercial  revolution, 
more  important  in  its  effects  upon  society,  and  pregnant  with 
weightier  consequences  in  the  future,  than  many  of  those  political 
revolutions  which  have  commanded  infinitely  greater  attention 
from  historians.  The  duty  on  cotton  goods  was  lowered  from  a 
figure  ranging  from  between  seventy-five  and  fifty  per  cent  down 
to  ten  per  cent.     Imported  linens  sometimes  paid  as  much  as  one 

1  April  16,  1839. 


110  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1825-28. 

hundred  and  eighty  per  cent ;  they  were  henceforth  to  be  admitted 
at  twenty-five.  Paper  had  been  prohibited ;  it  was  now  allowed 
to  come  in  on  paying  twice  the  amount  levied  as  excise  from  the 
home  manufacturer.  The  duty  on  a  foreign  manufacture  in  no 
case  exceeded  thirty  per  cent.  The  principle  of  this  immense  reform 
was  that,  if  the  article  were  not  made  either  much  better  or  at  a 
much  lower  price  abroad  than  at  home,  then  such  a  duty  would  be 
^mple  for  purposes  of  protection.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the  foreign 
article  were  either  so  much  better  or  so  much  cheaper  as  to  render 
thirty  per  cent  insuflicient  for  purposes  of  protection,  then,  in  the 
first  place,  a  heavier  duty  would  only  put  a  premium  on  smug- 
■  giing;  and,  secondly,  said  Huskisson,  there  is  no  wisdom  in 
bolstering  up  a  competition  which  this  degree  of  protection  will 
not  sustain. 
.  /'  These  enlightened  opinions,  and  the  measures  which  followed 
I  /  from  them,  were  the  first  rays  of  dawn  after  the  long  night  of 
V  confusion  and  mediocrity  in  which  the  Castlereaghs,  Sidmouths, 
/\  Bathursts,  Vansittarts,  had  governed  their  unfortunate  country. 
/  \  Even  now  political  power  was  so  distributed  that,  though  the  new 
--  school  thus  saw  the  better  course,  they  dared  not  to  venture  too 
rapidly  upon  it.  There  was  one  mighty  and  imperious  interest 
which,  as  the  parliamentary  system  was  then  disposed,  even  Can- 
ning's courage  shrank  from  offending.  The  Cabinet,  which  had 
radically  modified  a  host  of  restrictive  laws,  was  logically  and 
politically  bound  to  deal  with  the  most  important  of  them  all  — 
that  which  restrained  the  importation  of  food.  By  the  law  of 
\  1815  corn  could  be  imported  when  wheat  had  risen  to  eighty 
shillings  a  quarter.  By  the  law  of  1822  this  was  improved  to 
the  extent  of  permitting  importation  when  the  price  of  wheat 
was  seventy  shillings  a  quarter.  The  landlords  vowed  that  this 
was  the  lowest  rate  at  which  the  British  farmer  could  live,  and 
not  a  few  of  them  cried  out  for  total  prohibition.  They  had 
powerful  allies  in  the  Cabinet,  and  even  the  Liberal  wing  in  the 
Cabinet,  which  was  led  by  Canning,  never  dreamed  of  being  able 
to  push  the  landlords  very  hard.  When  pressed  by  a  motion  for 
'extending  to  the  case  of  grain  the  same  principle  which  had  just 
been  so  wisely  glorified  in  the  case  of  cotton,  woollen,  silk,  linen, 
and  glass,  Huskisson  resisted  it  on  the  too  familiar  ground  that 
the  motion  was  ill-timed.  He  did  not  deny  that  it  would  pres- 
ently be  necessary  to  revise  the  Corn  Laws ;  and  he  added  the 
important  admission  that  several  foreign  countries  were  not  only 
in  distress,  owing  to  our  exclusion  of  their  corn,  but  that  in  re- 
venge they  were  proceeding  to  shut  out  our  manufactures.^ 

Two  years  elapsed  before  the  Ministry  ventured  to  touch  the 
burning  subject.     The  new  measure  was  not  brought  forward  by 

1  April  28,  1825. 


JJt.  21-24.]  THE  CORN  LAWS.  Ill 

Huskisson.     It  was  officially  given  out  as  the  reason  for  this 
that  he  was  ill,  but  this  was  only  one  of  the  peculiar  blinds  that 
serve  to  open  people's  eyes.     Everybody  suspected  that  Huskis- 
son's  illness  was  in  reality  the  chagrin  of  the  good  economist  at  a 
bad  measure.     It  was  Canning  who,  in  the  spring  of  1827,  intro-  / 
duced  the  new  Corn  Bill.^     It  proceeded  on  the  plan  of  making  j 
the  duty  vary  inversely  with  the  price  of  the  grain  in  the  home  j 
market.     When  the  price  of  wheat  in  the  home  market  reached 
sixty  shillings  a  quarter,  foreign  wheat  was  to  pay  on  importation 
a  duty  of  one  pound.     For  every  rise  of  a  shilling  in  the  home 

--price  the  duty  was  to  go  down  two  shillings ;  for  every  fall  of  a  \ 
shilling  in  the  home  price  the  duty  was  to  go  up  two  shillings. 
The  increase  and  decrease  in  the  duty  was  always  to  be  double 
the  fall  and  rise  in  the  price.  In  other  words,  when  the  average 
price  reached  seventy  shillings,  wheat  might  be  imported  with  a 
nominal  duty  of  one  shilling ;  on  the  other  hand,  when  the  aver- 
age price  fell  to  fifty  shillings,  the  duty  on  foreign  wheat  would 
be  forty  shillings. 

After  the  bill  had  passed  the  Commons,  the  Liverpool  Ministry 
fell  to  pieces,  and  a  season  of  odious  intrigue  was  followed  by 
the  accession  of  Canning.  The  Corn  Bill  went  up  to  the  Lords 
in  due  course.  The  Duke  of  Wellington,  though  he  had  been  a 
member  of  the  Liverpool  Cabinet  by  which  the  bill  had  been  sanc- 
tioned, now  moved  an  amendment  on  it,  and  the  new  Ministry 
was  defeated.  Canning  and  Huskisson  let  the  bill  drop.  The 
event  which  so  speedily  followed  is  one  of  the  tragic  pages  in  the 
history  of  English  statesmen.  Canning  died  a  few  weeks  after 
the  close  of  the  session ;  Lord  Goderich's  abortive  Ministry  flick- 
ered into  existence  for  four  or  five  months,  when  it  flickered  out 
again ;  and  before  the  end  of  the  year  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
was  prime  minister.  The  great  soldier  was  a  narrow  and  sight- 
less statesman,  and  with  his  accession  to  power  all  the  worse 
impulses  of  the  privileged  classes  acquired  new  confidence  and 
intensity.  In  every  sphere  the  men  of  exclusion  and  restriction 
breathed  more  freely. 

The  Duke  introduced  a  new  Corn  Bill.  This  bad  measure 
accepted  Canning's  principle,  if  we  may  give  the  name  of  prin- 
ciple to  an  empirical  device ;  but  it  carried  the  principle  further 
in  the  wrong  direction.     In  the  bill  of  1827,  the  starting-point 

-  had  been  the  exaction  of  a  twenty-shilling  duty,  when  the  home 
price  was  sixty  shillings  the  quarter.  According  to  the  bill  of 
1828,  when  the  price  in  the  hom6  market  was  .sixty-four  shillings, 
the  duty  was  twenty-three  shillings  and  eightpence.     The  varia- 

■  tions  in  the  amount  of  duty  were  not  equal,  as  in  the  previous  bill, 
but  went  by  leaps.    Thus,  when  wheat  was  at  sixty-nine  shillings, 

1  March  1,  1827. 


112  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1828-41. 

the  duty  was  sixteen  and  eightpence ;  and  when  the  home  price 
rose  to  seventy-three,  then  the  duty  fell  to  the  nominal  rate  of  a 
shilling.  This  was  the  Corn  Law  which  Cobden  and  his  friends 
rose  up  to  overthrow.^ 

So  far  back  as  1815,  when  that  important  measure  had  been 
passed  restraining  the  introduction  of  wheat  for  home  consump- 
tion unless  tlie  average  price  had  reached  eighty  shillings  for  the 
quarter,  the  mischief  of  such  legislation  had  been  understood  and 
described  in  Parliament.  In  the  House  of  Lords  the  dissentients 
from  the  measure,  only  ten  in  number,  had  signed  a  protest, 
drawn  up,  as  it  has  always  been  believed,  by  that  independent 
and  hard-headed  statesman,  Lord  Grenville.  The  grounds  of  dis- 
sent were  these :  That  all  new  restraints  on  commerce  are  bad 
in  principle;  that  such  restraints  Jire  especially  bad  when  they 
affect  the  food  of  the  people ;  that  the  results  would  not  conduce 
to  plenty,  cheapness,  or  steadiness  of  price ;  that  such  a  measure 
levied  a  tax  on  the  consumer,  in  order  to  give  a  bounty  to  the 
grower  of  corn.  This  was  a  just  and  unanswerable  series  of 
objections.  Within  six  years  (1821)  a  parliamentary  committee 
was  appointed  to  inquire  into  agricultural  depression. 

If  we  turn  to  the  effect  of  our  regulations  upon  foreign  coun- 
tries, there  too  they  brought  nothing  but  calamity.  When  grain 
rose  to  a  starvation  price  in  England,  we  entered  the  foreign 
markets ;  the  influx  of  our  gold  disturbed  their  exchanges,  em- 
barrassed their  merchants,  and  engendered  all  the  mischief  of 
speculation  and  gambling.  As  it  was  put  by  some  speaker  of  the 
day,  the  question  was,  —  "  Are  you  to  receive  food  from  a  foreign 
country  quietly,  reasonably,  in  payment  for  the  manufactures 
which  you  send  to  them  ?  Or  are  you  to  go  to  them  only  in 
the  moment  of  perturbation,  of  anxiety,  of  starvation,  and  say, 
Now  we  must  have  food  at  any  rate,  and  we  will  pay  any  price, 
though  the  very  foundations  of  your  society  should  be  shaken  by 
the  transaction  ? " 

There  was  no  essential  bond  between  the  maintenance  of  agri- 
cultural protection  and  Conservative  policy.  Burke,  the  most 
magnificent  genius  that  the  Conservative  spirit  has  ever  attracted, 
was  one  of  the  earliest  assailants  of  legislative  interference  in  the 
corn  trade,  and  the  important  Corn  Act  of  1773  was  inspired  by 
J    his  maxim S.2     There  is  no  such  thing,  Burke  said,  as  the  landed 

1  9  Geo.  IV.,  c.  60. 

2  This  was  the  most  liberal  piece  of  legislation  until  the  Act  of  Repeal  in  1846. 
When  the  home  price  was  at  or  above  48s.,  imported  wheat  paid  a  nominal  duty  of 
Qd.,  and  the  bounty  on  exportation  ceased  when  the  home  price  was  44s.  "The 
Act  of  1773  should  not  have  been  altered,"  says  McCulloch,  *'  unless  to  give  greater 
freedom  to  the  trade." 


^T.  24-37.]  THE   CORN   LAWS.  113 

interest  separate  from  the  trading  interest ;  and  he  who  separates 
the  interest  of  the  consumer  from  the  interest  of  the  grower, 
starves  the  country.^  Five  and  twenty  years  after  this,  in  a  lumi- 
nous tract  often  praised  by  Cobden,  he  again  attacked  a  new  form 
of  the  futile  and  mischievous  system  of  dealing  with  agriculture 
as  if  it  were  different  from  any  other  branch  of  commerce,  and 
denounced  tampering  with  the  trade  in  provisions  as  of  all  things 
the  most  dangerous.^  Although,  however,  Conservative  policy 
was  not  necessarily  bound  up  with  protection,  the  Tory  party  were 
committed  to  it  by  all  the  ties  of  personal  interest. 

The  Whigs  ruled  the  country,  save  for  a  few  months,  for  eleven 
years,  from  1830  to  1841.  In  Lord  Melbourne's  Cabinet,  in  1839, 
the  Corn  Laws  were,  as  we  have  already  seen,  an  open  question.^ 
But  two  years  later  the  financial  position  of  the  country  had  be- 
come so  serious,  and  the  credit  and  forces  of  the  party  had  fallen 
so  low,  that  it  became  necessary  to  enter  upon  a  more  decisive 
course.  The  expenditure  had  undergone  a  progressive  increase, 
amounting  in  six  years  to  four  millions  sterling  on  the  annual 
estimates  for  the  military  and  naval  services  alone,  a  rise  of  more 
than  thirty  per  cent.  For  each  of  the  last  four  years  there  had 
been  a  serious  deficiency  of  income.  In  1840  it  was  a  million 
and  a  half  For  1841  it  was  given  out  as  upwards  of  one  million 
eight  hundred  and  fifty  thousand.  Nor  was  this  the  result  merely 
of  an  absence  of  fiscal  skill  in  the  government  of  the  day.  It  was 
the  sign,  confirmed  by  the  obstinate  depression  of  trade  and  the 
sufferings  of  the  population,  of  an  industrial  and  commercial  stag- 
nation which  could  only  be  dealt  with  by  an  economic  revolution. 

Besides  such  considerations  as  these,  there  were  the  considera- 
tions of  party  strength.  Macaulay's  biographer  quotes  a  signifi- 
cant passage  from  his  diary.  "  The  cry  for  free  trade  in  corn,"  he 
wrote  in  1839,  and  Macaulay  was  in  the  Cabinet,  "seems  to  be 
very  formidable.  If  the  Ministers  play  their  game  well,  they  may 
now  either  triumph  completely,  or  retire  with  honor.  They  have 
excellent  cards,  if  they  know  how  to  use  them."  *  Unluckily  for 
themselves,  they  did  not  know  how  to  use  them  ;  and  everybody 
was  quite  aware  that  their  conversion  towards  Free  Trade  was 
not  the  result  of  conviction,  but  was  only  the  last  device  of  a 
foundering  party. 

In  1840  a  committee  on  import  duties  had  sat,  and  produced  a 
striking  and  remarkable  report,  recommending  an  abandonment 
of  the  illiberal  and  exclusive  policy  of  the  past,  and  a  radical 
simplification  of  the  tariff  by  substituting  for  a  multitude  of 
duties,  imposts  on  a  small  number  of  the  most  productive  articles, 
the  amount  of  the  impost  being  calculated  with  a  view  to  the 

1  Feb.  28,  1771.  ^  Thoughts  and  Details  on  Scarcity.     1795. 

»  Above,  pp.  97,  100.  *  Trevelyan's  Life,  iL  87. 

8 


v/ 


114  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1841. 

greatest  consumption.  This  was  in  truth  the  base  of  Peel's  great 
^  reform  of  1842.  But  Lord  Melbourne's  Cabinet  had  no  member 
of  sufficient  grasp  and  audacity  in  finance  to  accept  boldly  and 
comprehensively,  as  Peel  afterwards  did,  the  maxim  that  reduc- 
tion of  duties  is  one  way  to  increase  of  revenue.  The  Whig  gov- 
ernment made  the  experiment  timidly,  and  they  met  the  common 
fate  of  those  who  take  a  great  principle  with  half-heartedness  and 
mistrust.  They  picked  it  up  for  want  of  a  better.  "  I  cannot 
conceive,"  said  Peel,  "  a  more  lamentable  position  than  that  of  a 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  seated  on  an  empty  chest,  by  the 
side  of  bottomless  deficiencies,  fishing  for  a  budget." 

The  proposals  which  the  government  had  hit  upon  were  these. 
They  returned  to  the  general  principle  of  the  budget  which  Lord 
Althorp  had  brought  forward  at  the  beginning  of  the  Whig  reign 
(1831)  —  the  boldest  budget,  as  it  has  justly  been  called,  since 
the  days  of  Pitt.^  The  main  object  of  the  commutation  of  duties. 
Lord  Althorp  had  said,  is  the  relief  of  the  lower  classes.  "  The 
best  way  of  relieving  them  is  by  giving  them  employment ;  and 
this  can  only  be  secured  by  reducing  the  taxes  which  most  inter- 
fere with  manufacturing  industry."  Among  other  devftces  for 
carrying  this  principle  into  practice.  Lord  Althorp  had  proposed 
to  regulate  the  timber  duties.^  He  had  failed  to  carry  that  meas- 
ure against  Peel's  opposition,  which  was  aided  by  a  general  opin- 
ion that  the  budget  was  unsound  —  an  opinion  mainly  due  to  the 
startling  proposal  to  levy  a  tax  of  a  half  per  cent  on  transfers  of 
funded  property.  Lord  Althorp's  successor  now  came  back  to 
some  of  his  ideas.  The  question  for  the  Cabinet  to  decide,  as 
Lord  John  Eussell  describes  the  situation,  "was  whether  they 
t  j  would  lower  duties  of  a  protective  character  on  a  great  number  of 
J  I  small  articles,  or  whether  they  would  attack  the  giant  monopolies 
i  of  sugar,  of  timber,  and  of  corn."     They  adopted  the  latter  course, 

ibut  in  the  spirit  of  Huskisson,  and  not  of  Cobden.  They  preferred 
an  ineffectual  approach  to  Free  Trade,  to  a  complete  repeal  of 
protective  duties.  To  touch  the  differential  duties  on  sugar  was 
to  attack  one  at  least  of  the  strongest  protective  interests  in  Par- 
liament, and  every  other  protected  interest  moved  in  sympathetic 
agitation^  The  more  sanguine  of  the  Ministers  hoped  to  beat 
them  by  conciliating  the  manufacturing  interest.  This  they  ex- 
pected to  reach  through  the  Corn  Laws.  Lord  John  Eussell 
moved  (May  7)  to  abolish  the  sliding  scale  of  1828,  and  to  estab- 
lish instead  a  fixed  eight-shilling  duty  upon  wheat.^  The  battle 
turned  upon  the  comparative  merits  of  Free  Trade  and  Protective 

1  Walpole's  History  of  England,  ii.  634. 

*  The  10s.  duty  on  Canadian  timber  was  to  be  raised  to  20s.,  and  the  555.  duty 
on  Norwegian  and  other  European  timber  lowered  to  20s. 

*  6s.  on  rye  ;  4s.  Qd.  on  barley  ;  3s.  id.  on  oats. 


^T.  37.]  THE   CORN  LAWS.  115 

duties,  and  in  the  special  question  of  the  Corn  Laws  upon  the 
comparative  merits  of  a  graduated  and  a  fixed  duty. 

In  a  debate  on  a  vote  of  confidence  in  1840,  Peel  seemed  to 
have  advanced  a  step  from  the  position  which  had  irritated  the 
Leaguers  in  1839.  He  still  considered  a  liberal  protection  to  do- 
mestic agriculture  indispensable,  both  in  the  special  interests  of 
agriculture,  and  the  general  interests  of  the  community.  He  did 
not  tie  himself  to  the  details  of  the  existing  law  ;  but  he  main- 
tained that  a  graduated  duty,  varying  inversely  with  the  price  of 
■corn,  was  far  preferable  to  a  fixed  duty.  He  objected  to  a  fixed 
duty  on  two  grounds :  first,  on  account  of  the  great  difficulty  of 
determining  the  proper  amount  of  it  on  any  satisfactory  data ; 
secondly,  and  chiefly,  because  he  foresaw  that  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  maintain  that  fixed  duty  under  a  very  high  price  of  corn, 
and  that,  if  it  were  once  withdrawn,  there  would  be  extreme  diffi- 
culty in  reimposing  it. 

He  now,  in  1841,  repeated  what  he  had  said  the  previous  year. 
"Notwithstanding  the  formidable  combination  which  has  been 
formed  against  the  Corn  Laws,"  he  said,  "notwithstanding  the 
declarations  that  either  the  total  repeal  or  the  substitution  of  a 
fixed  duty  for  the  present  scale  is  the  inevitable  result  of  the 
agitation  now  going  forward,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  avow  my 
adherence  to  the  opinion  which  I  expressed  last  year,  and  now 
again  declare,  that  my  preference  is  decidedly  in  favor  of  a  grad- 
uated scale  rather  than  any  fixed  duty." 

Lord  Melbourne  had  foreseen  the  fate  of  his  Chancellor's  budget. 
He  was  shrewd  enough  to  be  sure  that  a  half-measure  could  never 
raise  up  so  many  friends  among  the  manufacturers  as  to  outweigh 
the  united  force  of  the  agricultural  and  colonial  interests.^  In 
fact,  no  friends  were  raised  up.  No  great  body  was  conciliated, 
nor  attracted,  nor  even  touched  with  friendly  interest ;  and  the 
chief  reason  for  this  stubborn  apathy  was,  as  Sir  Eobert  Peel  said, 
that  nobody  believed  that  the  proposals  of  Ministers  sprang  from 
their  spontaneous  will,  or  that  they  had  been  adopted  in  conse- 
quence of  the  deliberate  convictions  of  those  who  brought  them 
forward.  The  conversion  was  too  rapid.  Only  two  years  had 
gone  since  the  Prime  Minister  had  declared  in  his  place  that  the 
repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  would  be  the  most  insane  proposition  that 
ever  entered  a  human  head.  Lord  Palmerston  made  a  fine  speech 
against  the  system  of  protective  duties ;  but  men  remembered 
tliat,  two  years  before,  he  had  voted  against  Mr.  Villiers's  motion 
to  hear  the  members  of  the  Manchester  Association  at  the  bar  of  the 
House.     And  the  motives  of  so  speedy  a  change  were  too  plain. 

The  first  division  as  to  the  new  budget  was  taken  upon  the 

1  Torrens's  Life  of  Melbourne,  ii.  368. 


116  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1841. 

sugar  duties ;  the  Ministers  found  themselves  in  a  minority  of 
thirty-six.  They  still  held  on,  and,  instead  of  either  resigning 
or  dissolving  immediately,  astonished  Parliament  and  the  country 
by  an  announcement  that  they  would  go  on  with  the  old  sugar 
duties,  and  would  bring  forward  the  question  of  the  Corn  Laws  in 
the  course  of  two  or  three  weeks.  Sir  Eobert  Peel  declined 
to  give  them  the  chance,  brought  forward  a  vote  of  want  of  con- 
fidence, and  carried  it  by  a  majority  of  one. 

The  Ministers  could  not  believe  that  the  House  of  Commons 
represented  th-e  wishes  of  the  country,  and  to  the  country  they 
now  appealed. 


CHAPTER  VIIL 

COBDEN   ENTERS   PARLIAMENT  —  FIRST   SESSION. 

The  dissolution  of  Parliament  took  place  at  Midsummer.  The 
League  went  actively  into  the  campaign,  though  not  with  that  in- 
flexibility in  electoral  policy  which  afterwards  marked  their  opera- 
tions. They  had  to  face  the  question  which  always  perplexes  the 
thorough-going  advocates  of  any  political  principle,  when  they 
come  to  deal  with  political  practice.  In  all  such  cases  a  section 
springs  up  which  is  prepared  to  go  half-way.  The  Government 
had  given  to  this  section  a  cry.  They  were  not  prepared  for  total 
and  immediate  repeal,  but  tliey  would  go  for  a  moderate  fixed 
duty.  The  proposal  of  a  fixed  duty  furnished  the  compromisers 
with  a  comfortable  halting-place.  They  could  thus  claim  to  be 
Free  Traders,  without  being  suspected  of  the  deadly  sin  of  being 
extreme.  The  Council  of  the  League  were  called  upon  to  settle 
the  proper  attitude  towards  the  men  of  the  middle  course.  Were 
they  to  offer  a  fanatical  resistance  to  the  men  of  the  middle  party, 
thus  shocking  timid  but  reasonable  sympathizers,  and  forfeiting 
their  own  character  for  prudence  and  discretion,  qualities  as 
essential  to  success  as  sincerity  itself?  They  answered  this 
question  as  might  have  been  expected  at  that  time.  For  them- 
selves, they  held  to  their  own  demand  for  the  entire  liberation  of 
the  provision  trade.  Wherever  there  was  a  constituency  ripe  for 
carrying  a  candidate  of  this  color,  every  exertion  was  to  be  made 
for  securing  a  good  candidate  and  insuring  his  return.  Where 
friends  of  the  League  were  in  a  constituency  not  yet  enlightened 
enough  to  return  a  candidate  of  League  principles,  then  they 
ought  to  vote  for  a  candidate  who  would  support  the  measure  of 
the  Government.     Considering  both  the  moderate  strength  of  the 


-Ex.  37.]  COBDEN  ENTERS  PARLIAMENT.  117 

League  at  that  time,  and  the  state  of  the  question  in  men's  minds, 
it  seems  that  this  was  the  natural  and  judicious  course. 

Some  of  the  more  dogged,  however,  among  members  of  the 
League  were  hurt  by  what  they  took  for  a  Laodicean  halting 
between  two  opinions,  and  talked  of  withdrawing  or  lessening 
their  subscriptions.  Subscriptions  are  always  a  very  sensitive 
point  in  agitations  ;  and  Cobden  found  it  worth  while,  after  the 
elections  were  over,  to  write  a  letter  to  one  of  the  more  important 
of  the  protesters,  explaining  the  principle  on  which  the  League 
had, acted.  "With  reference  to  your  complaint,"  he  says,  "that 
the  League  did  not  oppose  the  measure  of  the  Government,  I  must 
remind  you  that  the  real  governing  power,  the  landed  and  other 
monopolists,  held  fast  by  the  old  law ;  they  never  attempted  to 
force  the  fixed  duty  upon  us.  We  regarded  the  Government 
proposal,  not  as  au  offer  from  a  party  strong  enough  to  concede 
anything,  but  merely  as  a  step  in  advance  taken  by  a  portion  of 
the  aristocracy.  It  was  not  our  business  to  attack  them,  whilst 
another  party,  more  powerful  than  the  Government  and  the 
people,  were  resolutely  opposed  to  any  concession.  To  my  humble 
apprehension,  it  is  as  unwise  as  unjust  in  any  kind  of  political 
warfare  to  assail  those  who  are  disposed  to  co-operate,  however 
slightly,  in  the  attempt  to  overthrow  a  formidable  and  uncompro- 
mising enemy." 

In  the  elections  in  the  north  of  England  the  repealers  were 
successful  against  both  Whigs  and  Tories,  and  among  those  who  i 
succeeded  was  Cobden  himself.     "  I  am  afraid,"  he  wrote  to  his  I 
brother,  "  you  will  be  vexed  on  landing  in  England  to  find  me 
Member  for  Stockport.     I  had  fully,  as  you  know,  determined 
not  to  go  to  Parliament.     I  stood  out.     The  Bolton  and  Stockport 
folks  both  got  requisitions  to  me  insuring  my  return.     I  declined. ;' 
It  was  then  that  the  Stockport  people  put  the  screw  upon  me,  by; 
a  large   deputation   confessing  their  inability  to  agree  amongst 
themselves  upon  any  other  man  who  could  turn  out  the  Major. 
Tliey  offered  me  carte  blanche  as  to  my  attendance  in  London,  and 
as  to  the  time  of  my  retaining  the  seat.     I  was  over-persuaded 
by  my  Mancliester  partisans  and  have  yielded,  and  the  election 
is  secure.     You  must  not  vex  yourself,  for  I  am   quite  resolved 
that  it  shall  not  be  the  cause  of  imposing  either  additional  expense 
on  my  mode  of  living,  or  any  increased  call  upon  my  time  for 
public  objects.     I   did   not   dream   of   this,   as   you   very   well 
know."  ^ 

"  I  have  a  right  to  expect  other  men  of  business,"  he  wrote  to 
a  manufacturer  at  Warrington,  urging  a  contest  in  that  borough, 
"  for  I  am  doing  it  myself  nmch  against  my  wish.     I  offered  to 

1  To  F.  Cobden,  June  16,  1841. 


118  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1841. 

give  a  "hundred  pounds  towards  the  expenses  of  another  candidate 
in  my  stead  for  Stockport,  and  to  canvass  for  him  for  a  week ;  and 
it  was  only  when  the  electors  declared  that  they  could  not  agree 
to  another,  and  would  not  be  able  to  oust  the  bread-taxers  with- 
out me,  that  I  consented  to  stand." 

The  League,  in  fact,  put  a  strong  pressure  upon  him,  and  we 
may  perhaps  believe  that  Cobden's  resistance  to  the  urgency  of 
his  political  friends  was  not  very  stubborn.  He  must  have  felt 
by  invincible  instinct  that  only  through  a  seat  in  Parliament 
•^  could  he  secure  an  effective  hearing  for  his  arguments.  It  is  un- 
certain whether  the  opinion  of  the  constituency  which  had  rejected 
him  in  1837,  had  really  been  excited  by  the  Free  Trade  discus- 
sion, or  whether  the  motives  of  the  voters  were  merely  personal. 
Shrewd  electioneerers  have  a  maxim  that  a  candidate  is  sure  to  win 
any  given  seat  in  time,  if  he  is  only  tenacious  enough.  Cobden 
was  returned  by  a  triumphant  majority.  "  The  Stockport  affair," 
he  wrote,  "  was  carried  with  unexpected  eclat.  "We  drubbed  the 
Major  so  soundly  that  at  one  o'clock  he  resigned.  We  could  have 
beaten  him  easily  by  two  to  one.  My  committee  worked  to  ad- 
miration. Two  hundred  electors  were  up  all  the  night  previous 
to  polling,  including  the  mill-owners  ....  who  neither  changed 
their  clothes  nor  closed  their  eyes  for  thirty-six  hours.  These 
men  were  against  me  at  the  former  election.  Upon  the  whole 
the  elections  will  give  Peel  a  majority  of  thirty  or  forty.  So  much 
the  better.     We  shall  do  something  in  opposition."  ^ 

It  proved  that  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  a  niajority,  not  of  thirty  or 
forty,  but  of  more  than  ninety.  Lord  Melbourne,  however,  did 
not  anticipate  the  practice  of  our  own  day  by  resigning  before  the 
meeting  of  the  hostile  Parliament.  The  Ministers  put  into  the 
Queen's  speech  as  good  an  account  as  they  could  of  their  policy, 
and  awaited  their  fate.  Cobden  took  his  seat  on  the  first  day  of 
the  session.  "  Yesterday,"  he  says,  "  I  went  down  to  the  House 
to  be  sworn  to  renounce  the  Pope  and  the  Pretender.  Then  I 
went  into  the  Treasury,  and  heard  Lord  John  deliver  his  last 
dying  speech  and  confession  to  his  parliamentary  minority.  He 
gave  us  the  substance  of  the  Queen's  speech,  which  is  in  the 
Chronicle  to-day.  I  cannot  learn  what  the  Tories  intend  to  do 
to-night,  but  I  suppose  they  will  try  to  avoid  committing  them- 
selves against  the  Free  Trade  measures.  It  is  allowed  on  all 
sides  that  they  fear  discussion  as  they  do  death.  It  is  reported 
that  the  old  Duke  advises  his  party  not  to  force  themselves  on 
the  Queen,  but  to  let  the  Whigs  go  on  till  the  reins  fairly  drop 
out  of  their  hands.  The  Queen  seems  to  be  more  violently  opposed 
than  ever  to  the  Tories."  ^ 

1  To  F.  Cohden,  July  3,  1841.  i  To  F.  Cobden,  Awgnsi  24,  1841. 


^T.  37.]  COBDEN   ENTERS   PARLIAMENT.  119 

The  Queen  had  no  choice.  An  amendment  was  moved  upon 
the  address  in  both  Houses,  and  carried  in  the  Commons  by  the 
irresistible  majority  of  ninety-one.  The  vote  was  taken  at  five 
in  the  morning  (August  28),  and  in  the  afternoon  of  the  same 
day  Lord  Melbourne  went  down  to  Windsor  to  resign  his  post. 
Within  a  few  days  tliat  great  administration  was  formed  which  ■ 
contained  not  only  able  Tories  like  Lord  Lyndhurst,  but  able  se- 
ceders  from  the  Whigs  like  Lord  Stanley  and  Sir  James  Graham ; 
which  commanded  an  immense  majority  in  both  Houses ;  which 
was  led  by  a  chief  of  consummate  sagacity  ;  and  which  was  at 
last,  five  years  afterwards,  slowly  broken  to  pieces  by  the  work  of  \j 
Cobden  and  the  League. 

Cobden  made  his  maiden  speech  in  the  debate  which  preceded 
this  great  official  revolution.  "  I  was  induced,"  he  writes  to  his 
brother,  "  to  speak  last  night  at  about  nine  o'clock.  We  thought 
tlie  debate  would  have  been  brought  to  a  close.  The  Tories  were 
doggedly  resolved  from  the  first  not  to  enter  upon  any  discussion 
of  the  main  question,  and  the  discussion,  if  it  could  be  called  one, 
went  on  as  flat  as  possible.  My  speech  had  one  good  effect.  I 
called  up  a  booby  who  let  fly  at  the  manufacturers,  very  much  to 
the  chagrin,  I  suspect,  of  the  leader  of  his  party.  It  is  now 
thought  that  the  Tories  must  come  out  and  discuss  in  self-defence 
the  Free  Trade  question,  and  if  not,  they  will  be  damaged  by  the 
arguments  on  the  other  side.  All  my  friends  say  I  did  well. 
But  I  feel  it  very  necessary  to  be  cautious  in  speaking  too  much.  / 
I  shall  be  an  observer  for  some  time."  ^ ^ 

We  now  see  that  Cobden's  maiden  speech  was  much  more  than 
a  success  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  attracting  the  attention  of  that  y 
most  difficult  of  all  audiences.  It  sounded  a  new  key,  and  startled 
men  by  an  accent  that  was  strange  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
The  thoughtful  among  them  recognized  the  rare  tone  of  reality, 
and  the  note  of  a  man  dealing  with  things  and  not  words.  He 
produced  that  singular  and  profound  effect  which  is  perceived  in 
English  deliberative  assemblies,  when  a  speaker  leaves  party  re- 
criminations, abstract  argument,  and  commonplaces  of  sentiment, 
in  order  to  inform  his  hearers  of  telling  facts  in  the  condition  of 
the  nation.  Cobden  reminded  the  House  that  it  was  the  condi- 
tion of  the  nation,  and  not  the  interests  of  a  class,  or  the  abstract 
doctrines  of  the  economist,  that  cried  for  a  relief  which  it  was 
in  the  power  of  the  legislature  to  bestow.  This  was  the  point  of 
the  speech.  In  spite  of  the  strong  wish  of  everybody  on  the  side 
of  the  majority,  and  of  many  on  the  side  of  the  minority,  to  keep 
the  Corn  Law  out  of  the  debate,  Cobden  insisted  that  the  Corn 
Law  was  in  reality  the  only  matter  which  at  that  moment  was 

1  To  F.  Cohden,  August  26,  1841. 


120  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1841. 

worth  debating  at  all.  The  family  of  a  nobleman,  he  showed  the 
House,  paid  to  the  bread  tax  about  one  halfpenny  on  every  hun- 
dred pounds  of  income,  while  tlie  effect 'of  the  tax  on  the  family 
of  the  laboring  man  was  not  less  than  twenty  per  cent.  A  fact 
of  this  kind,  as  they  said  of  Pericles's  speeches,  left  a  sting  in  the 
minds  of  his  hearers.  The  results  of  the  injustice  were  seen  in 
the  misery  of  the  population.  A  great  meeting  of  ministers  of 
religion  of  all  sects  had  been  held  in  Manchester  a  few  days  before, 
and  Cobden  told  the  House  something  of  tlie  destitution  through- 

-^^.^^  out  the  country,  to  which  these  men  had  borne  testimony. 

"  At  that  meeting,"  he  said,  "  most  important  statements  of 
facts  were  made  relating  to  the-  condition  of  the  laboring  classes. 
He  would  not  trouble  the  House  by  reading  those  statements ; 
but  they  showed  that  in  every  district  of  the  country  ....  the 
condition  of  the  great  body  of  her  Majesty's  laboring  population 
had  deteriorated  wofully  within  the  last  ten  years,  and  more 
especially  within  the  last  three  years  ;  and  that,  in  proportion  as 
,  the  price  of  food  increased,  in  the  same  proportion  the  comforts 

v/  of  the  working-classes  had  diminished.  One  word  with  respect 
to  the  manner  in  which  his  allusion  to  this  meeting  was  received. 
He  did  not  come  there  to  vindicate  the  conduct  of  these  Christian 
•men  in  having  assembled  in  order  to  take  this  subject  into  con- 
sideration. The  people  who  had  to  judge  them  were  their  own 
congregations.  There  were  at  that  meeting  members  of  the  Es- 
tablished Church,  of  the  Church  of  Eome,  Independents,  Baptists, 
members  of  the  Church  of  Scotland  and  of  the  Secession  Church, 
Methodists,  and  indeed  ministers  of  every  other  denomination; 
and  if  he  were  disposed  to  impugn  the  character  of  those  divines, 
he  felt  he  should  be  casting  a  stigma  and  a  rejDroach  upon  the 
great  body  of  professing  Christians  in  his  country.  He  happened 
to  be  the  only  member  of  the  House  present  at  that  meeting ; 
and  he  might  be  allowed  to  state  that  when  he  heard  the  tales  of 
misery  there  described  ;  when  he  heard  these  ministers  declare 
that  members  of  their  congregations  were  kept  away  from  places 
of  worship  during  the  morning  service,  and  only  crept  out  under 
cover  of  the  darkness  of  night;  when  they  described  others  as 
unfit  to  receive  spiritual  consolation,  because  they  were  sunk  so 
low  in  physical  destitution ;  that  the  attendance  at  Sunday- 
schools  was  falling  oft';  when  he  heard  these  and  such  like  state- 
ments ;  when  he  who  believed  that  the  Corn  Law,  the  provision 
monopoly,  was  at  the  bottom  of  all  that  was  endured,  heard  those 
statements,  and  from  such  authority,  he  must  say  that  he  rejoiced 
to  see  gentlemen  of  such  character  come  forward,  and  like  Na- 
than, when  he  addressed  the  owner  of  flocks  and  herds  who  had 
plundered  the  poor  man  of  his  only  lamb,  say  unto  the  doer  of 
injustice,  whoever  he  might  be  :   '  Thou  art  the  man.'     The  peo- 


^T.37.]  COBDEN  ENTERS   PARLIAMENT.  121 

pie,  through  their  ministers,  had  protested  against  the  Corn  Laws. 
....  When  they  found  so  many  ministers  of  religion,  with- 
out any  sectarian  differences,  joining  heart  and  hand  in  a  great 
cause,  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  their  earnestness Eng- 
lishmen had  a  respect  for  rank,  for  wealth  —  perhaps  too  much ; 
they  felt  an  attachment  to  the  laws  of  their  country;  but  there 
was  another  attribute  in  the  minds  of  Englishmen  —  there  was  a 
permanent  veneration  for  sacred  things  ;  and  when  their  sympa- 
thy and  respect  and  deference  were  enlisted  in  what  they  believed 
to  be  a  sacred  cause,  you  and  yours  [addressing  the  Protectionists] 
will  vanish  like  chaff  before  the  whirlwind." 

One  or  two  simpletons  laughed  at  an  appeal  to  evidence  from 
such  a  source ;  but  it  was  felt  that,  though  they  might  jeer  at 
the  speaker  as  a  Methodist  parson,  and  look  down  upon  him  as  a 
manufacturer,  yet  he  represented  a  new  force  with  which  the  old 
parties  would  one  day  have  to  deal.  In  the  country  his  speech 
excited  the  deep  interest  of  that  great  class,  who  are  habitually 
repelled  by  the  narrow  passions  and  seeming  insincerity  of  ordi- 
nary politics. 

His  friends  in  the  north  were  delighted  by  the  vigor  and 
alacrity  of  their  champion.  With  the  sanguine  assurance  of  all 
people  who  have  convinced  themselves  of  the  goodness  of  their 
cause,  and  are  very  earnest  in  wishing  to  carry  it,  they  were  cer- 
tain that  Cobden's  arguments  must  speedily  convert  Parliament 
and  the  Ministry,  f  "  It  is  pleasant,"  Cobden  wrote  to  his  brother, 
"to  learn  that  my  maiden  effort  has  pleased  our  good  friends.  I 
have  some  letters  from  Manchester  with  congratulations.  It  is 
very  pleasant,  but  I  must  be  careful  not  to  be  carried  off  my  legs. 
Stanley  scowls  and  Peel  smiles  at  me,  both  meaning  mischief. 
There  is  no  otlier  man  on  the  other  side  that  I  have  heard,  who  is 
at  all  formidable.  I  observe  there  are  a  great  many  busy  men  of 
our  party  who  like  to  see  their  names  in  print,  and  who  therefore 
take  up  small  matters  continually ;  they  are  very  little  attended 
to  by  the  House.  With  these  men  I  shall  not  interfere,  and  they 
will  all  aid  me  in  obtaining  a  fair  hearing  on  my  great  question. 
We  had  a  curious  scene  of  jealousy  and  bickering  to-day.  Sliar- 
man  Crawford  brought  on  an  amendment  to  the  address  without 
consulting  anybody,^  Koebuck,  who  is  as  wayward  and  impul- 
sive as  he  is  clever,  walked  out  of  the  House  with  a  tail  of  four 
or  five,  whilst  hearty  old  Wallace  of  Greenock  cried  but,  '  Who 
cares  for  you  ?  who  cares  ? '  amidst  the  roars  of  the  House.     I  can 

1  When  the  House  met  to  receive  the  Report  on  the  Amended  Address,  Mr. 
Crawford  proposed  an  amendment,  to  the  effect  that  the  distress  deplored  in  the 
Speech  was  to  be  attributed  to  the  non-representation  of  the  working  classes  in 
Parliament.  The  Radicals  were  not  unanimous,  and  the  amendment  was  defeated 
by  283  against  39. 


122  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1841. 

see  that  Roebuck  will  never  do  any  good  for  our  Free  Trade  party. 
He  does  not  see  the  importance  of  our  principle,  and  therefore 
cannot  feel  a  proper  interest  in  it.  He  is  a  good  deal  in  commu- 
nication with  Brougham,  who,  by  the  way,  sent  word  by  Sturge 
to-day  that  he  wants  to  see  me.  I  find  myself  beset  by  cliques, 
but  my  abstemious  and  ruminating  turn  will  make  me  entirely 
safe  from  all  such  intrigues  and  influences."  ^ 
.  "  From  what  I  can  hear,"  he  wrote  a  month  later,  "  it  appears 
I  that  Peel  has  no  plan  in  view  of  any  kind,  with  respect  to  the  corn 
I  question.  The  aristocracy  and  people  are  gaping  at  him,  wonder- 
ing what  he  is  going  to  do,  and  his  head  will  be  at  work  with  no 
higher  ambition  than  to  gull  both  parties.  I  am  of  opinion  that 
there  never  was  a  better  moment  than  at  present  for  carrying  the 
question  out  of  doors.  If  there  be  determination  enough  in  the 
minds  of  the  people  to  make  a  vigorous  demonstration  during  the 
recess,  he  will  give  way ;  if  not,  he  will  stick  to  his  sliding  scale 
and  the  aristocracy.  There  is  a  rumor  very  industriously  spread 
in  London  that  we  are  going  to  have  a  better  trade.  This  is  one 
in  the  chapter  of  accidents  upon  which  Peel  depends  for  an  escape 
into  smooth  water." 

Now,  as  throughout  the  whole  of  the  struggle,  Cobden  kept  up 
the  closest  relations  with  the  local  leaders  of  the  movement  in 
the  north.  One  of  the  most  baneful  effects  of  the  concentration 
and  intensity  of  parliamentary  life  is  that  members  cease  to  in- 
spire themselves  with  the  more  wholesome  air  of  the  nation  out- 
side. From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  career,  Cobden 
cared  very  little  about  the  opinion  of  the  House,  and  hoped  very 
little  from  its  disinterestedness.  He  never  greatly  valued  the 
judgment  of  parliamentary  coteries.  It  was  the  mind  of  the 
country  that  he  always  sought  to  know  and  to  influence.  And 
though  he  had  proper  confidence  in  the  soundness  of  his  own 
judgment,  he  was  wholly  free  from  the  weakness  of  thinking  that 
his  judgment  could  stand  alone.  He  was  invariably  eager  to 
collect  the  opinions  of  his  fellow-workers  at  Manchester,  and  not 
only  to  collect  them,  but  to  be  guided  by  them. 

"  It  is  quite  evident,"  he  wrote  to  Mr.  George  Wilson,  towards 
the  end  of  September,  "  that  Peel  has  made  up  his  mind  to  pro- 
rogue without  entering  upon  the  consideration  of  the  Corn  Law. 
The  business  of  the  session  will  now  be  hurried  on  and  brought  to 
a  close  probably  by  the  end  of  the  week.  Under  these  circum- 
stances I  wish  to  know  the  opinion  of  our  friends  in  Manchester 
as  to  the  course  which  it  would  be  advisable  for  the  few  Anti-Corn- 
Law  members  now  in  London  to  pursue.  Will  you  be  good  enough 
at  once  to  call  together  the  whole  of  the  Council,  and  consult  with 

1  To  F.  Cobden,  August  29,  1841. 


j:t.37.]  cobden  enters  parlia.,^.,.. 

f^  /  OIF  K 

as  many  judicious  people  as  you  can,  and  determine  wlietlier  you 
think  anything,  and  what,  can  be  done  to  promote  the  cause  ? 
The  main  question  for  you  to  decide  is  whether  it  be  advisable  for 
Mr.  Villiers  to  give  notice  of  a  motion  for  discussing  the  question 
before  the  Houses  are  prorogued.  The  Tories  would  shirk  the 
discussion  in  the  same  way  as  heretofore.  Do  you  think  under 
such  circumstances  that  it  would  advance  our  cause  by  persisting 
in  a  one-sided  debate  ?  I  think  the  general  opinion  up  here  is  that 
the  way  in  which  Peel  has  hitherto  evaded  the  question,  has  done 
us  good  service  by  dissatisfying  the  public  mind  with  the  new  Min- 
istry. But  we  are  not  good  judges  of  the  public  feeling,  who  are 
actors  in  a  sphere  of  our  own,  where  we  are  apt  to  be  acted  upon 
by  our  own  preconceived  opinions.  You  are  in  a  better  position 
for  forming  a  correct  judgment  as  to  the  state  of  the  public  mind. 
The  question  for  you  to  decide  really  is  whether  the  feeling  out 
of  doors  would  back  a  small  party  in  the  House  struggling  for  a 
hearing  of  their  cause  now.  Do  you  think  there  is  a  desire  for 
us  to  make  a  pertinacious  stand  now  ?  Be  good  enough  to  take 
the  matter  into  your  calm  consideration,  and  give  me  the  result 
of  your  deliberation  by  return.  Mr.  Villiers,  who  is  now  installed 
as  our  leader,  would,  I  have  no  doubt,  act  upon  your  well-con- 
sidered judgment.  I  would  merely  add  that  you  would  do  well . 
to  take  into  consideration  the  probable  amount  of  public  demon- 
stration to  be  made  by  memorials  to  the  Queen  during  the  next 
week.  You  will  be  able  to  form  an  estimate  of  the  extent  to 
which  the  example  of  Manchester  will  be  followed  in  other  places, 
and  which  must  form  a  material  consideration  in  deciding  upon 
the  course  we  ought  to  take  in  Parliament."  ^ 

Cobden  made  two  qther  speeches  in  the  course  of  the  autumn 
session,  after  the  re-election  of  tlie  Ministers  (Sept.  16  —  Oct. 
7).  Lord  John  Eussell  reproached  the  new  Premier  for  asking 
for  time  to  prepare  his  schemes  for  repairing  the  national  finances. 
Peel  justly  asked  him. why,  if  they  were  so  convinced  of  the  ur- 
gency of  the  evils  inflicted  on  the  country  by  the  Corn  Laws,  if 
they  thought  that  commercial  distress  was  to  be  attributed  to  them, 
and  that  these  laws  were  at  the  root  of  the  sufferings  of  the 
working  class  —  why  they  had  allowed  them  to  remain  an  openV 
question,  and  why  they  remained  in  office,  allowing  Lord  Mel- 
bourne, to  hold  opposite  opinions.  Cobden  rose  to  protest  against 
treating  the  subject  as  a  party  question,  and  against  making  the 
House  a  mere  debating  club.  He  insisted  on  trying  to  keep 
the  mind  of  the  House  fixed  on  the  privation  and  distress  in  the 
manufacturing  districts,  and  he  urged  the  Minister  not  to  postpone 
the  question  of  the  Corn  Laws  over  the  coming  winter. 

1  To  G.  Wilson,  September,  1841. 


124  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1841. 

".  .  .  .  T  sat  through  the  voting  of  money,  vastly  edified  and 
scandalized  at  the  way  in  which  the  poor  devils  of  tax-payers  are 
robbed.  The  sum  of  100,000/.  for  arming  and  clothing  militia  in 
Canada,  lighthouses  in  Jamaica,  negro  education,  bishops  all  over 

the  world,  &c.,  &c.,  in  goodly  proportions The  people  are, 

I  am  afraid,  fit  for  nothing  better.  I  did  not  offer  an  objection, 
for  it  would  have  been  ridiculous  to  do  so.  It  did,  however,  cost 
nie  some  efforts  to  hold  my  tongue.  I  am  glad  that  you  did  not 
think  my  second  speech  too  strong.  I  was  not  quite  satisfied  with 
it  myself.  It  was,  however,  badly  reported.  I  was  rather  better 
pleased  with  my  third,  on  Friday,  when  I  found  there  was  an 
effort  made  at  first  to  annoy  me,  on  the  part  of  some  young 
obscures,  one  of  whom  followed  me  with  an  evidently  'conned 
reply,'  in  which  he  had  quotations  from  my  speech  at  Manchester, 
about  the  Oxford  education,  the  Ilissus,  Scamander,  &c.  His 
speech  was  not  reported.  It  was  a  mere  prize  essay  oration,  which, 
thanks  to  the  practical  turn  that  has  been  given  to  subjects  of 
debate,  finds  no  relish  in  the  house  now-a-days.  It  is  quite  clear 
that  I  am  looked  upon  as  a  Gothic  invader,  and  the  classicals  will 
criticise  me  unmercifully.  But  I  have  vitality  enough  to  rise 
above  the  little  trips  which  my  heels  may  get  at  first.  Ultimately 
these  attacks  will  only  give  me  a  surer  foothold.  The  part  of  my 
last  speech  that  struck  home  the  most  was  at  the  close.  I  had 
observed  an  evident  disposition  on  the  Tory  side  to  set  up  as 
philanthropists.  Old  Sir  Eobert  Inglis  sat  with  his  hands  folded 
ready  to  sigh,  and,  if  needful,  to  wee;^  over  a  case  of  church  desti- 
tution ;  he  delivered  a  flaming  panegyric  upon  Lord  Ashley  the 
other  night,  styling  him  the  friend  of  the  unprotected,  after  he  had 
been  canting  about  the  sufferings  of  lunatics.  Added,  to  this, 
Peel  has  been  professing  the  utmost  anxiety  for  paupers,  and  Sir 
Eardley  Wilmot  is  running  after  Sturge.  When  I  told  them  at 
the  close  of  my  speech  that  I  had  been  quietly  observing  all  this, 
but  it  would  not  all  do  unless  they  showed  their  consistency  by 
untaxing  the  poor  man's  loaf,  there  was  a  stillness  and  attention 
on  the  other  side  very  much  like  the  conduct  of  men  looking 
aghast  at  the  first  consciousness  of  being /ound  out.  My  style  of 
speaking  pleases  the  gallery  people,  and  has  attracted  the  notice 
of  the  Radicals  out  of  doors.  But  the  Tories,  especially  the  young 
fry,  regard  me  in  no  other  way  than  as  a  petard  would  be  viewed 
by  people  in  a  powder-magazine,  a  thing  to  be  trampled  on,  kicked 
about,  or  put  out  in  any  way  they  can."  ^ 

When  Cobden  rose  on  this  last  occasion  there  were  cries  of 
impatience>  from  the  ministerial  side  of  the  House,  but  this  did 
not  prevent  him  from  persevering  with  an  argumentative  remon- 

1  To  F.  Cobden,  Sept.  27,  1841. 


^ 


Mt.si.']  cobden  enters  parliament.  125 

strance  against  the  incredulity  or  apathy  with  which  the  Govern- 
ment treated  the  distress  of  the  manufacturing  towns.  The  point 
which  he  pressed  most  keenly  was  the  interchange  of  food  and 
manufactures  between  England  and  the  United  States  that  would 
instantly  follow  repeal.  He  quoted  from  a  petition  to  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States.  The  petitioner  argued  that,  if  the 
English  landowners  would  only  be  satisfied  with  a  moderate  duty 
in  lieu  of  the  existing  sliding  scale,  there  would  then  be  a  constant 
market  for  wheat  in  England,  and  the  whole  of  the  return  would 
be  required  in  British  manufactured  goods  ;  the  consequence  of 
which  would  be  that  every  spindle,  wheel,  and  hammer  in  the 
manufacturing  district  in  this  country  would  be  set  free. 

"  Suppose  now,"  Cobden  went  on,  "  that  it  were  but  the  Thames 
instead  of  the  Atlantic  which  separated  the  two  countries  —  sup- 
pose that  the  people  on  one  side  were  mechanics  and  artisans, 
capable  by  their  industry  of  producing  a  vast  supply  of  manufac- 
tures ;  and  that  the  people  on  the  other  side  were  agriculturists, 
producing  infinitely  more  than  they  could  themselves  consume  of 
corn,  pork,  and  beef — fancy  these  two  separate  peoples  anxious 
and  willing  to  exchange  with  each  other  the  produce  of  tlieir 
common  industries,  and  fancy  a  demon  rising  from  the  middle  of 
the  river  —  for  I  cannot  imagine  anything  human  in  such  a  posi- 
tion and  performing  such  an  office  —  fancy  a  demon  rising  from 
the  river,  and  holding  in  his  hand  an  Act  of  Parliament,  and 
saying,  '  You  shall  not  supply  each  other's  waijts ; '  and  then,  in 
addition  to  that,  let  it  be  supposed  that  this  demon  said  to  his 
victim  with  an  affected  smile,  '  This  is  for  your  benefit ;  I  do  it 
entirely  for  your  protection  ! '  Where  was  the  difference  between 
the  Thames  and  the  Atlantic  ?  " 

It  was  after  a  vigorous  and  persistent  description  of  the  priva-  i 
tions  of  the  people  in  the  North,  that  he  turned  sharply  round 
upon  the  men  whom  he  denounced  for  drawing  the  attention  of 
Parliament  away  from  the  real  issues  to  vague  questions  of  phi- 
lanthropy. "  When  I  go  down  to  the  manufacturing  districts," 
he  said,  "  I  know  that  I  shall  be  returning  to  a  gloomy  scene.  I 
know  that  starvation  is  stalking  through  the  land,  and  that  men 
are  perishing  for  want  of  the  merest  necessaries  of  life.  When  I 
witness  this,  and  recollect  that  there  is  a  law  which  especially 
provides  for  keeping  our  population  in  absolute  want,  I  cannot 
help  attributing  murder  to  the  Legislature  of  this  country :  and 
wherever  I  stand,  whether  here  or  out-of-doors,  I  will  denounce 
that  system  of  legislative  murder."  He  then  turned  to  one  mem- 
ber who  was  a  great  friend  of  negro  slaves,  and  to  another  wlio 
was  a  great  friend  of  Church  Establishment,  and  who  had  lately 
complimented  Lord  Ashley  as  the  great  friend  of  humanity  gen- 
erally, and  of  factory  children  in  particular.     "  When  I  see  a  dis- 


J 


126  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1841. 

position  among  you,"  he  said,  "  to  trade  in  humanity,  I  will  not 
question  your  motives,  but  this  I  will  tell  you,  that  if  you  would 
give  force  and  grace  to  your  professions  of  humanity,  it  must  not 
be  confined  to  the  negro  at  the  antipodes,  nor  to  the  building  of 
churches,  nor  to  the  extension  of  Church  establishments,  nor  to 
occasional  visits  to  factories  to  talk  sentiment  over  factory  chil- 
dren —  you  must  untax  the  people's  bread." 

Cobden's  intervention  in  debate  was  more  than  a  parliamentary 
incident.  It  was  the  symbol  of  a  new  spirit  of  self-assertion  in  a 
great  social  order.  The  Eeform  Bill  had  admitted  manufacturing 
towns  to  a  share  of  representation.  Cobden  lost  no  time  in 
vindicatiug  the  reality  of  this  representation.  The  conflict  of  the 
next  five  years  was  not  merely  a  battle  about  a  customs  duty;  it 
was  a  struggle  for  political  influence  and  social  equality  between 
the  landed  aristocracy  and  the  great  industrialistsT]  Of  this,  an 
incident  in  the  debates  of  the  following  session  will  furnish  us 
with  a  sufficiently  graphic  illustration.  It  is  only  by  reading  the 
correspondence  of  that  time,  and  listening  to  the  men  who  still 
survive,  without  having  left  its  passions  behind  them,  that  we 
realize  the  angry  astonishment  with  which  the  old  society  of 
England  beheld  the  first  serious  attempts  of  a  new  class  to  assert 
its  claim  to  take  a  foremost  place.  Many  years  after  the  fight 
began,  when  Mr.  Bright  was  unseated  at  Manchester,  we  shall 
find  that  Cobden  laid  most  stress  on  the  ingratitude  of  the  manu- 
facturers of  the  northern  capital  in  forgetting  that  Mr.  Bright  had 
been  the  "  valiant  defender  of  their  order." 


CHAPTER  IX. 

COBDEN  AS  AN  AGITATOR. 

In  the  autumn  of  1841  there  happened  what  proved  to  be  a 
signal  event  in  the  annals  of  the  League,  and  in  Cobden's  per- 
sonal history.  He  and  Mr.  Bright  made  that  solemn  compact 
which  gave  so  strong  an  impulse  to  the  movement,  and  was  the 
beginning  of  an  affectionate  and  noble  friendship  that  lasted 
without  a  cloud  or  a  jar  until  Cobden's  death. 

Mr.  Bright,  who  was  seven  years  younger  than  Cobden,  had 
made  his  acquaintance  some  time  before  the  question  of  the 
Corn  Laws  had  come  up.  He  had  gone  over  in  the  year  1836 
or  1837  to  Manchester,  to  call  upon  Cobden,  "to  ask  him  if  he 
would  be  kind  enough  to  come  to  Eochdale,  and  to  speak  at  an 


^T.  37.]  COBDEN   AS   AN   AGITATOR.  127 

education  meeting  which  was  about  to  be  held  in  the  schoolroom 
of  the  Baptist  chapel  in  West  Street  of  that  town.  I  found  him 
in  his  office  in  Mosley  Street.  I  introduced  myself  to  him.  I 
told  him  what  I  wanted.  His  countenance  lit  up  with  pleasure 
to  find  that  there  were  others  that  were  working  in  this  question, 
and  he  without  hesitation  agreed  to  come.  He  came,  and  he 
spoke ;  and  though  he  was  then  so  young  as  a  speaker,  yet  the 
qualities  of  his  speech  were  such  as  remained  with  him  so  long 
as  he  was  able  to  speak  at  all  —  clearness,  logic,  a  conversa- 
tional eloquence,  a  persuasiveness  which,  when  conjoined  with 
the  absolute  truth  which  there  was  in  his  eye  and  in  his  coun- 
tenance—  a  persuasiveness  which  it  was  almost  impossible  to 
resist." 

Then  came  the  gradual  formation  of  the  League,  Cobden's 
election  to  Parliament,  and  the  close  of  his  first  session.  "  It 
was  in  September,  in  the  year  1841,"  said  Mr.  Bright.  "The 
sufferings  throughout  the  country  were  fearful;  and  you  who 
live  now,  but  were  not  of  age  to  observe  what  was  passing  in  the 
country  then,  can  have  no  idea  of  the  state  of  your  country  in 

that  year At  that  time  I  was  at  Leamington,  and  I  was, 

on  the  day  when  Mr.  Cobden  called  upon  me  —  for  he  happened 
to  be  there  at  the  time  on  a  visit  to  some  relatives  —  I  was  in 
the  depths  of  grief,  I  might  almost  say  of  despair ;  for  the  light 
and  sunshine  of  my  house  had  been  extinguished.  All  that  was 
left  on  earth  of  my  young  wife,  except  the  memory  of  a  sainted 
life  and  of  a  too  brief  happiness,  was  lying  still  and  cold  in  the 
chamber  above  us.  Mr.  Cobden  called  upon  me  as  his  friend,  and 
addressed  me,  as  you  might  suppose,  wdth  words  of  condolence.^ 
After  a  time  he  looked  up  and  said,  'There  are  thousands  of 
houses  in  England  at  this  moment  where  wives,  mothers,  and 
children  are  dying  of  hunger.  Now,'  he  said,  'when  the  first 
paroxysin  of  your  grief  is  past,  I  would  advise  you  to  come  with 
me,  and  we  will  never  rest  till  the  Corn  Law  is  repealed.'  I 
accepted  his  invitation.  I  knew  that  the  description  he  had 
given  of  the  homes  of  thousands  was  not  an  exaggerated  descrip- 
tion. I  felt  in  my  conscience  that  there  was  a  work  which 
somebody  must  do,  and  therefore  I  accepted  his  invitation,  and 
from  that  time  we  never  ceased  to  labor  hard  on  behalf  of  the 
resolution  which  we  had  made." 

"For  seven  years,"  Mr.  Bright  says,  "the  discussion  on  that 
one  question  —  whether  it  was  good  for  a  man  to  have  half  a 
loaf  or  a  whole  loaf  —  for  seven  years  the  discussion  was  main- 
tained, I  will  not  say  with  doubtful  result,  for  the  result  was 
never  doubtful,  and  never  could  be  in  such  a  cause ;  but  for  five 

1  Mr.  Bright  lost  his  wife  on  the  10th  of  September,  and  Cobden's  visit  to  him 
was  on  the  13th. 


v/ 


128  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [184,1. 

years  or  more  [1841-46]  we  devoted  ourselves  vi^ithout  stint; 
every  working  hour  almost  was  given  up  to  the  discussion  and 
to  the  movement  in  connection  with  this  question."  ^ 

This  is  an  appropriate  place  for  considering  some  of  the  qualifi- 
cations that  Cobden  brought  to  the  mission  which  he  and  his  ally 
thus  imposed  upon  themselves.  In  speaking  of  him  I  may  seem 
to  ignore  fellow- workers  whose  share  in  the  agitation  was  hardly 
less  important  than  his  own ;  without  whose  zeal,  disinterested- 
ness, and  intelligence,  the  work  of  himself  and  Mr.  Bright  would 
have  been  of  little  effect,  and  could  never  have  been  undertaken. 
IN  0  history  of  the  League  could  be  perfect  which  did  not  com- 
memorate the  names  and  labors  of  many  other  able  men,  who 
devoted  themselves  with  hardly  inferior  energy  to  the  exhausting 
work  of  organization  and  propagandism.  But  these  pages  have 
no  pretensions  to  tell  the  whole  story ;  they  only  are  concerned 
with  so  much  of  it  as  relates  to  one  of  its  heroes.  "  We  were  not 
even  the  first,"  said  Mr.  Bright,  "  though  afterwards,  perhaps,  we 
became  the  foremost  before  the  public.  But  there  were  others 
before  us."  The  public  imagination  was  struck  by  the  figures  of 
the  pair  who  had  given  themselves  up  to  a  great  public  cause. 
The  alliance  between  them  far  more  than  doubled  the  power  that 
either  could  have  exerted  without  the  other.  The  picture  of  two 
plain  men  leaving  their  homes  and  their  business,  and  going  over 
the  length  and  breadth  "of  the  land  to  convert  the  nation,  had 
about  it  something  apostolic :  it  presented  something  so  far  re- 
moved from  the  stereotyped  ways  of  political  activity,  that  this 
circumstance  alone,  apart  from  the  object  for  which  they  were 
pleading,  touched  and  affected  people,  and  gave  a  certain  dramatic 
interest  to  the  long  pilgrimages  of  the  two  men  who  had  only 
become  orators  because  they  had  something  to  say,  which  they 
were  intent  on  bringing  their  hearers  to  believe,  and  which 
happened  to  be  true,  wise,  and  just. 

The  agitator  has  not  been  a  very  common  personage  in  English 
history.  The  greatest  that  has  ever  been  seen  was  O'Connell,  and 
I  do  not  know  of  any  other,  until  the  time  of  the  League,  who 
may  be  placed  even  as  second  to  him.  In  the  previous  century 
Wilkes  had  made  a  great  figure,  and  Wilkes  was  a  man  of  real 
power  and  energy.  But  he  was  rather  the  symbol  of  a  strong 
popular  sentiment,  than  its  inspirer ;  and  he  may  be  more  truly 
said  to  have  been  borne  on  the  crest  of  the  movement,  than  to 
have  given  to  it  force  or  volume. 

Cobden  seemed  to  have  few  of  the  endowments  of  an  agitator, 

1  This  and  the  preceding  passages  are  from  the  very  beautiful  address  delivered 
by  Mr.  Bright,  when  he  unveiled  the  statue  of  his  friend  at  Bradford,  July  25, 
1877.  The  address  is  to  be  found  in  Mr.  Thorold  Kogers's  volume  of  Public 
Addresses  of  John  Bright,  pp.  354-366. 


^T.  37.]  COBDEN   AS   AN  AGITATOR.  129 

as  that  character  is  ordinarily  thought  of.  He  had  no  striking 
physical  gilts  of  the  histrionic  kind.  He  had  one  physical  quality 
which  must  be  ranked  first  among  the  secondary  endowments  of 
great  workers.  Later  in  life  he  said,  "If  I  had  not  had  the 
faculty  of  sleeping  like  a  dead  fish,  in  five  minutes  after  the  most 
exciting  mental  effort,  and  with  the  certainty  of  having  oblivion 
for  six  consecutive  hours,  I  should  not  have  been  alive  now."  In 
his  early  days,  he  was  slight  in  frame  and  build.  He  afterwards 
grew  nearer  to  portliness.  He  had  a  large  and  powerful  head,  and 
the  indescribable  charm  of  a  candid  eye.  His  features  were  not 
of  a  commanding  type;'  but  they  were  illuminated  and  made 
attractive  by  the  brightness  of  intelligence,  of  sympathy,  and  of 
earnestness.  About  the  mouth  there  was  a  curiously  winning 
mobility  and  play.  His  voice  was  clear,  varied  in  its  tones,  sweet, 
and  penetrating ;  but  it  had  scarcely  the  compass,  or  the  depth, 
or  the  many  resources,  that  have  usually  been  found  in  orators 
who  have  drawn  great  multitudes  of  men  to  listen  to  them.  Of 
nervous  fire,  indeed,  he  had  abundance,  though  it  was  not  the  fire 
which  flames  up  in  the  radiant  colors  of  a  strong  imagination.  It 
was  rather  the  glow  of  a  thoroughly  convinced  reason,  of  intellect- 
ual ingenuity,  of  argumentative  keenness.  It  came  from  trans- 
parent honesty,  thoroughly  clear  ideas,  and  a  very  definite  purpose 
These  were  exactly  the  qualities  that  Cobden's  share  in  the  work 
demanded.  Any  professor  could  have  supplied  a  demonstration 
of  the  economic  fallacy  of  monopoly.  Fox,  the  Unitarian  minis- 
ter, was  better  able  to  stir  men's  spirits  by  pictures,  which  were 
none  the  less  true  for  being  very  florid,  of  the  social  miseries  that 
came  of  monopoly.  In  Cobden  the  fervor  and  the  logic  were 
mixed,  and  his  fervor  was  seen  to  have  its  source  in  the  strength 
of  his  logical  confidence. 

It  has  often  been  pointed  out  how  the  two  great  spokesmen  of 
the  League  were  the  complements  of  one  another ;  how  their  gifts 
differed,  so  that  one  exactly  covered  the  ground  which  the  other 
was  predisposed  to  leave  comparatively  untouched.  The  differ- 
ences between  them,  it  is  true,  were  not  so  many  as  the  points  of 
resemblance.  If  in  Mr.  Bright  there  was  a  deeper  austerity,  in 
both  there  was  the  same  homeliness  of  allusion,  and  the  same 
graphic  plainness.  Both  avoided  the  stilted  abstractions  of  rhet- 
oric, and  neither  was  ever  afraid  of  the  vulgarity  of  details.  In 
Cobden  as  in  Bright,  we  feel  that  there  was  nothing  personal  or 
small,  and  that  what  they  cared  for  so  vehemently  were  great 
causes.  There  w^as  a  resolute  standing  aloof  from  the  small  things 
of  party,  which  would  be  almost  arrogant,  if  the  whole  texture  of 
what  they  had  to  say  were  less  thoroughly  penetrated  with  politi- 
cal morality  and  with  humanity.  Then  there  came  the  points  of 
difference.     Mr.  Bright  had  all  the  resources  of  passion  alive 


;1 


130  LIFE  OF   COBDEN.  [1841. 

within  his  breast.  He  was  carried  along  by  vehement  political 
anger,  and,  deeper  than  that,  there  glowed  a  wrath  as  stern  as  that 
of  an  ancient  prophet.  To  cling  to  a  mischievous  error  seemed 
to  him  to  savor  of  moral  depravity  and  corruption  of  heart. 
What  he  saw  was  the  selfishness  of  the  aristocracy  and  the  land- 
lords, and  he  was  too  deeply  moved  by  hatred  of  this,  to  care  to 
deal  very  patiently  with  the  bad  reasoning  which  their  own  self- 
interest  inclined  his  adversaries  to  mistake  for  good.  His  invec- 
tive was  not  the  expression  of  mere  irritation,  but  a  profound  and 
menacing  passion.  Hence  he  dominated  his  audiences  from  a 
height,  while  his  companion  rather  drew  them  along  after  him  as 
friends  and  equals.  Cobden  was  by  no  means  incapable  of  passion, 
of  violent  feeling,  or  of  vehement  expression.  His  fighting  qual- 
ities were  in  their  own  way  as  formidable  as  Mr.  Bright's ;  and 
he  had  a  way  of  dropping  his  jaw  and  throwing  back  his  head, 
when  he  took  off  the  gloves  for  an  encounter  in  good  earnest, 
which  was  not  less  alarming  to  his  opponents  than  the  more 
sombre  style  of  his  colleague.  Still,  it  was  not  passion  to  which 
we  must  look  for  the  secret  of  his  oratorical  success.  I  have 
asked  many  scores  of  those  who  knew  him,  Conservatives  as  well 
as  Liberals,  what  this  secret  was,  and  in  no  single  case  did  my 
interlocutor  fail  to  begin,  and  in  nearly  every  case  he  ended  as  he 

Shad  begun,  with  the  word  persuasiveness.  Cobden  made  his  way 
to  men's  hearts  by  the  union  which  they  saw  in  him  of  simplicity, 
earnestness,  and  conviction,  with  a  singular  facility  of  exposition. 
This  facility  consisted  in  a  remarkable  power  of  apt  and  homely 
illustration,  and  a  curious  ingenuity  in  framing  the  argument  that 
happened  to  be  wanted.  Besides  his  skill  in  thus  hitting  on  the 
right  argument,  Cobden  had  the  oratorical  art  of  presenting  it  in 
the  way  that  made  its  admission  to  the  understanding  of  a  listener 
easy  and  undenied.  He  always  seemed  to  have  made  exactly  the 
right  degree  of  allowance  for  the  difiiculty  with  which  men  follow 
a  speech,  as  compared  with  the  ease  of  following  the  same  argu- 
ment on  a  printed  page,  which  they  may  con  and  ponder  until 
their  apprehension  is  complete.  Then  men  were  attracted  by  his 
mental  alacrity,  by  the  instant  readiness  with  which  he  turned 

I  round  to  grapple  with  a  new  objection.  Prompt  and  confident, 
he  was  never  at  a  loss,  and  he  never  hesitated.  This  is  what  Mr. 
Disraeli  meant  when  he  spoke  of  Cobden's  "  sauciness."  It  had 
an  excellent  effect,  because  everybody  knew^  that  it  sprang,  not 
from  levity  or  presumption,  but  from  a  free  mastery  of  his  subject. 
If  in  one  sense  the  Corn  Laws  did  not  seem  a  promising  theme 
for  a  popular  agitation,  they  were  excellently  fitted  to  bring  out 
Cobden's  peculiar  strength,  for  they  dealt  with  firm  matter  and 
demonstrable  inferences,  and  this  was  the  region  where  Cobden's 
powers  naturally  exercised  themselves.      In  such  an  appeal  to 


^T.37.]  COBDEN   AS   AN  AGITATOR.  131 

sentimeDt  and  popular  passion  as  the  contemporary  agitation  of 
O'Connell  for  Kepeal,  he  could  have  played  no  leading  part.^ 
Where  knowledge  and  logic  were  the  proper  instruments,  Cobden  | 
was  a  master.  ' 

Enormous  masses  of  material  for  the  case  poured  every  week 
into  the  offices  of  the  League.  All  the  day  long  Cobden  was  talk- 
ing with  men  who  had  something  to  tell  him.  Correspondents 
from  every  quarter  of  the  land  plied  him  with  information.  Yet 
he  was  never  overwhelmed  by  the  volume  of  the  stream.  He 
was  incessantly  on  the  alert  for  a  useful  fact,  a  telling  illustration, 
a  new  fallacy  to  expose.  So  dexterously  did  he  move  through 
the  ever-growing  piles  of  matter,  that  it  seemed  to  his  companions 
as  if  nothing  apposite  ever  escaped  him,  and  nothing  irrelevant 
ever  detained  him. 

A  political  or  religious  agitator  must  not  be  afraid  of  incessant 
repetition.  Eepetition  is  his  most  effective  instrument.  The  fas- 
tidiousness which  is  proper  to  literature,  and  which  makes  a  man 
dread  to  say  the  same  thing  twice,  is  in  the  field  of  propagandism 
mere  impotency.  This  is  one  reason  why  even  the  greatest  agi- 
tators in  causes  which  have  shaken  the  world,  are  often  among 
the  least  interesting  men  in  history.  Cobden  had  moral  and 
social  gifts  which  invest  him  with  a  peculiar  attraction,  and  will 
long  make  his  memory  interesting  as  that  of  a  versatile  nature ; 
but  he  was  never  afraid  of  the  agitator's  art  of  repeating  his  for- 
mula, his  principles,  his  illustrations,  his  phrases,  with  untiring  . 
reiteration.  ^ 

Though  he  abounded  in  matter,  Cobden  can  hardly  be  described 
as  copious.  He  is  neat  and  pointed,  nor  is  his  argument  ever  left 
unci  inched ;  but  he  permits  himself  no  large  excursions.  What 
he  was  thinking  of  was  the  matter  immediately  in  hand,  the' 
audience  before  his  eyes,  the  point  that  would  tell  best  then 
and  there,  and  would  be  most  likely  to  remain  in  men's  recol- 
lections. For  such  purposes  copiousness  is  ill-fitted ;  that  is  for 
the  stately  leisure  of  the  pulpit.  Cobden's  task  was  to  leave  in 
his  hearer's  mind  a  compact  answer  to  each  current  fallacy,  and 
to  scotch  or  kill  as  many  protectionist  sophisms  as  possible 
within  the  given  time.  What  is  remarkable  is,  that  while  he 
kept  close  to  the  matter  and  substance  of  his  case,  and  resorted 
comparatively  little  to  sarcasm,  humor,  invective,  pathos,  or  the 
other  elements  that  are  catalogued  in  manuals  of  rhetoric,  yet  no 
speaker  was  ever  further  removed  from  prosiness,  or  came  into 
more  real  and  sympathetic  contact  with  his  audience.  His  speak- 
ing was  thoroughly  business-like,  and  yet  it  was  never  dull.  It 
was  not,  according  to  the  old  definition  of  oratory,  reason  fused  in 

1  See  Mr.  McCarthy's  History  of  Our  Own  Times,  i.  340,  348. 


132  LIFE   OP  COBDEN.  [1841. 

passion,  but  reason  fused  by  the  warmth  of  personal  geniality. 
No  one  has  ever  reached  Cobden's  pitch  of  success  as  a  platform 
speaker,  with  a  style  that  seldom  went  beyond  the  vigorous  and 
animated  conversation  of  a  bright  and  companionable  spirit. 

After  all,  it  is  not  tropes  and  perorations  theit  make  the  popu- 
lar speaker ;  it  is  the  wliole  impression  of  his  personality.  We 
who  only  read  them  can  discern  certain  admirable  qualities  in 
Cobden's  speeches;  aptness  in  choosing  topics,  lucidity  in  pre- 
senting them,  buoyant  confidence  in  pressing  them  home.  But 
those  who  listened  to  them  felt  much  more  than  all  this.  They 
were  delighted  by  mingled  vivacity  and  ease,  by  directness,  by 
spontaneousness  and  reality,  by  the  charm,  so  effective  and  so  un- 
common between  a  speaker  and  his  audience,  of  personal  friendli- 
ness and  undisguised  cordiality.  Let  me  give  an  illustration  of 
this.  Cobden  once  had  an  interview  with  Eowland  Hill,  some 
time  in  1838,  and  gave  evidence  in  favor  of  the  proposed  reform 
in  the  postage.  Eowland  Hill,  in  w'riting  to  him  afterwards, 
excuses  himself  for  troubling  Cobden  with  his  private  affairs : 
"  Your  conversation,  evidence,  and  letters  have  created  a  feeling 
in  my  mind  so  like  that  which  one  entertains  towards  an  old 
friend,  that  I  am  apt  to  forget  that  I  have  met  you  but  once."  It 
was  just  the  same  with  bodies  of  men  as  it  was  with  individuals. 
No  public  speaker  was  ever  so  rapid  and  so  successful  in  estab- 
lishing genial  relations  of  respect  without  formality,  and  intimacy 
without  familiarity.  •  One  great  source  of  this,  in  Mr.  Bright's 
words,  was  "  the  absolute  truth  that  shone  in  his  eye  and  in  his 
countenance." 

I  have  spoken  of  Cobden's  patience  in  acquiring  and  shaping 
matter.  ;This  was  surpassed  by  his  inexhaustible  patience  in 
dealing  with  the  mental  infirmities  of  those  whom  it  was  his 
business  to  persuade.  He  was  wholly  free  from  the  unmeasured 
anger  against  human  stupidity,  which  is  itself  one  of  the  most 
provoking  forms  of  that  stupidity. 1  Cobden  was  not  without  the 
J  faculty  of  intellectual  contempt,  and  he  had  the  gift  of  irony ;  but 
in  the  contempt  was  no  presumption,  and  it  was  irony  without 
truculence.  There  came  a  time  when  he  found  that  he  could  do 
nothing  with  men  ;  when  he  could  hardly  even  hope  to  find  an 
audience  that  would  suffer  him  to  speak.  But  during  the  work 
of  the  League,  at  any  rate,  he  had  none  of  that  bias  against  his 
own  countrymen  to  which  the  reformer  in  every  nation  is  so 
liable,  because  upon  the  reformer  their  defects  press  very  closely 
and  obstructively,  while  he  has  no  reason  to  observe  the  same  or 
worse  defects  in  other  nations. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  Cobden  was  a  good  Englishman, 
and  he  was  so,  in  spite  of  finer  qualities  which  our  neighbors  are 
not  willing  to  allow  to  us.     London  society,  and  smart  journalists 


JEt.  37.]  COBDEN  AS   AN  AGITATOR.  133 

who  mistook  a  little  book-knowledge  for  culture,  were  in  the 
habit  of  disparaging  Cobden  as  a  common  manufacturer,  without 
an  idea  in  his  head  beyond  buying  in  the  cheapest  market  and 
selling  in  the  dearest.  This  was  not  the  vay  in  which  he  struck 
the  most  fastidious,  critical,  and  refined  man  of  letters  in  Europe, 
accustomed  to  mix  with  the  most  important  personages  of  litera- 
ture and  affairs  then  alive.  Prosper  Merimee  saw  a  great  deal 
of  Cobden  in  1860,  when  they  both  spent  part  of  the  winter  at 
Cannes.  "  Cobden,"  he  wrote  to  his  intimate  correspondent,  "  is 
a  man  of  an  extremely  interesting  mind  ;  quite  the  opposite  of  an 
Englishman  in  this  respect,  that  you  never  hear  him  talk  com- 
monplaces, and  that  he  has  few  prejudices."  It  was  just  because  / 
he  was  not  a  man  of  prejudice,  that  he  had  none  against  his  owir 
countrymen.  We  saw  how,  when  he  was  travelling  in  America, 
he  found  his  British  blood  up,  as  he  said,  and  he  dealt  faithfully 
with  the  disparagers  of  the  mother  country.^  Returning  from 
France  on  one  occasion,  Cobden  says  in  his  journal,  that  they  all 
remarked  on  the  handsome  women  who  were  seen  on  the  English 
platforms,  and  all  agreed  that  they  were  handsomer  than  those 
whom  they  had  left  on  the  other  side.  "  The  race  of  men  and 
women  in  the  British  Islands,"  Cobden  goes  on  to  himself,  "is 
the  finest  in  the  world  in  a  physical  sense ;  and  although  they 
have  many  moral  defects  and  some  repulsive  qualities,  yet  on  the 
whole  I  think  the  English  are  the  most  outspoken,  truthful  men  / 
in  the  world,  and  this  virtue  lies  at  the  bottom  of  their  political 
and  commercial  greatness." 

This  conviction  inspired  him  with  a  peculiar  respect  for  his 
great  popular  audiences,  and  they  instinctively  felt  the  presence 
of  it,  making  a  claim  to  their  good-will  and  their  attention. 
Cobden  differed  from  his  countrymen  as  to  what  it  is  that  will 
make  England  great,  but  he  was  as  anxious  that  England  should 
be  great,  and  as  proud  of  English  virtues  and  energies,  as  the 
noisiest  patriot  in  a  London  music-hall. 

Cobden  always  said  that  it  was  an  advantage  to  him  as  an 
agitator  that  he  was  a  member  of  the  Church  of  England.  He 
used  to  tell  of  men  who  came  up  to  him  and  declared  that  their 
confidence  in  him  dated  from  the  moment  when  they  learnt  that 
he  was  a  churchman,  It  was,  perhaps,  a  greater  advantage  to  him 
than  he  knew.  However  little  we  may  admire  a  State  establish- 
ment of  religion,  it  is  certain  that,  where  such  an  establishment 
happens  to  exist,  those  who  have  been  brought  up  in  it,  and  have 
tranquilly  conformed  to  its  usages,  escape  one  source  of  a  certain 
mental  asperity  and  the  spirit  of  division.  This  is  no  credit  to 
them  or  to  the  institution ;  any  more  than  the  asperity  is  a  dis- 

1  Above,  pp.  22,  23. 


134  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1841. 

credit  to  those  who  do  not  conform  to  the  institution.  Nay,  one 
strong  reason  why  some  disapprove  of  systems  of  ecclesiastical 
privilege,  is  exactly  that  in  modern  societies  it  necessarily  engen- 
ders this  spirit  of  division.  But  in  itself  the  spirit  of  division  is 
no  element  of  strength,  but  rather  of  weakness,  for  one  whose 
task  is  to  touch  doubtful  or  unwilling  hearers. 

Temperament,  however,  had  a  larger  share  than  institutions  in 
Cobden's  faculty  of  moral  sympatliy.  There  is  scanty  evidence 
of  anything  like  an  intense  spirituality  in  his  nature ;  he  was 
neither  oppressed  nor  elevated  by  the  mysteries,  the  aspirations, 
the  remorse,  the  hope,  that  constitute  religion.  So  far  as  we  can 
have  means  of  knowing,  he  was  not  of  those  who  live  much  in 
the  Unseen.  But  for  moral  goodness,  in  whatever  association  he 
came  upon  it,  he  had  a  reverence  that  came  from'  his  heart  of 
hearts.  While  leaning  strongly  towards  those  scientific  theories 
of  motive  and  conduct,  of  which,  as  has  been  already  said,  George 
Combe  was  in  those  days  the  most  active  propagandist,  he  felt  no 
contempt,  provided  only  their  practical  endeavor  was  towards 
good,  for  those  who  clung  narrowly  to  older  explanations  of  the 
heart  of  man.  In  a  letter  written  to  Combe  himself,  when  the 
struggle  against  the  Corn  Laws  was  over,  Cobden  allows  himself 
to  talk  freely  on  his  own  attitude  in  these  high  matters :  — 

".  .  .  .  With  reference,"  he  says,  "to  your  remarks  as  to  the 
evangelical  dissenters  and  religionists  generally,  and  their  views 
of  your  philosophy  of  morals  —  I  will  confess  to  you  that  /  am 
not  inclined  to  quarrel  with  that  class  of  my  countrymen.  I  see 
the  full  force  of  what  you  urge,  but  am  inclined  to  hope  more 
from  them  in  time  than  any  other  party  in  the  State.  Gradually 
and  imperceptibly  to  themselves  they  are  catching  the  spirit  of 
the  age,  so  far  as  to  recognize  the  moral  laws  as  a  part  of  our 
natural  organization.  They  do  not  accept  your  views  to  the 
superseding  of  their  own,  but,  like  geology,  your  science  is  forcing 
its  way  alongside  of  preconceived  ideas,  and  they  will  for  a  time 
go  together  without  perceptibly  clashing. 

"  I  do  not  quarrel  with  the  religionists,  for  I  find  them  gener- 
ally enforcing  or  at  all  events  recognizing  and  professing  to  act 
upon  (they  do  not,  I  admit,  sufficiently  preach  it)  the  morality  of 
the  New  Testament,  and  you  can  do  no  more.  The  only  difference 
is  that  John  Calvin  and  George  Combe  act  upon  different  theo- 
ries, and  rely  upon  different  motives,  and  start  from  very  differ- 
ent  premises,  but   they  recognize   the   selfsame  ends   secularly 

speaking,  and  I  cannot  quarrel  with  either I  am  by  nature 

a  religionist.  I  was  much  struck  with  your  remark  when  you 
mapped  my  head  eleven  years  ago,  —  *  Why,  if  you  had  been  born 
in  the  middle  ages,  you  would  have  made  a  good  monk,  you  have 
so  much  veneration ! '     That  was  a  triumph  for  phrenology,  for 


iET.37.]  COBDEN  AS   AN   AGITATOR.  135 

you  could  have  formed  no  such  notion  from  anything  you  had 
seen  or  heard  of  me.  I  have  a  strong  religious  feeling,  —  a  sym- 
pathy for  men  who  act  under  that  impulse ;  I  reverence  it  as  the 
great  leverage  which  has  moved  mankind  to  powerful  action. 
1  acknowledge  that  it  has  been  perverted  to  infinite  mischief  I 
confess  it  has  been  the  means  of  degrading  men  to  brutish  pur- 
poses ....  but  it  has  also  done  glorious  deeds  for  liberty  and 
human  exaltation,  and  it  is  destined  to  do  still  better  things.  It 
is  fortunate  for  me  that  whilst  possessing  a  strong  logical  faculty, 
which  keeps  me  in  the  path  of  rationalism,  I  have  the  religious 
sympathy  which  enables  me  to  co-operate  with  men  of  exclusively 
religious  sentiment.  I  mean  it  is  fortunate  for  my  powers  of 
usefulness  in  this  my  day  and  generation.  To  this  circumstance 
I  am  greatly  indebted  for  the  success  of  the  great  Free  Trade 
stru"ule,  which  has  been  more  indebted  to  the  or^ran  of  veneration 
for  its  success,  than  is  generally  known. 

"  I  am  not  without  hopes  that  the  same  fortunate  circumstance 
in  organization  may  enable  me  to  co-operate  efficiently  with  the 
most  active  and  best  spirits  of  our  day,  in  the  work  of  moral  and 
intellectual  education.  I  could  insist  upon  the  necessity  of 
secular  teaching  and  training  without  wounding  the  religious 
prejudices  of  any  man,  excepting  the  grovelling  bigots  whether  of 
the  High  Church  party  or  the  opposite  extreme,  against  whom  I 
could  make  war  in  the  same  spirit  which  has  in  the  case  of  the 
Corn  monopolists  enabled  me  to  deprive  them  of  the  pretence 
for  personal  resentment,  even  in  the  hour  of  their  defeat  and 
humiliation. 

"  I  have  said  that  I  have  a  strong  feeling  of  sympathy  for  the 
religious  sentiment.  But  I  sympathize  with  all  moral  men  who 
are  not  passive  moralists  :  with  them  it  is  difficult  to  sympathize, 
but  I  venerate  and  trust  them.  Especially  do  I  sympathize  with 
those  who  labor  and  make  sacrifices  for  the  diffusion  of  sound 
moral  principles.  I  will  own,  however,  that  it  is  unpleasant  to 
my  feelings  to  associate  with  those  who,  whilst  they  indulge  in 
coarse  sceptical  allusions  to  our  faith,  do  not  in  their  private  life 
manifest  that  they  impose  a  better  restraint  upon  themselves  than 
is  to  be  found  in  the  New  Testament.  My  active  public  life  has 
sometimes  thrown  me  into  such  company,  and  with  these  esprits 
foists,  as  the  Frencli  call  them,  I  have  no  sympathy.  My  maxim 
is  in  such  predicaments  to  avoid  theological  discussions  (here 
again  is  my  veneration  overriding  causality),  and  to  avow  that 
I  am  resolved  to  follow  Bonaparte's  advice  —  to  adhere  to  the 
religion  of  my  mother,  who  was  an  energetically  pious  woman."  ^ 

No  whisper  was  ever  seriously  raised  against  Cobden's  trans- 

1  To  George  Combe,  Aug.  1,  1846. 


\/' 


136  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1841. 

parent  honesty.  What  is  worth  remarking  is,  that  his  sincerity 
was  not  of  that  cheap  and  reckless  kind,  by  virtue  of  which  men 
sometimes  in  one  wild  outburst  of  plain  speech  cut  themselves 
off  from  chances  of  public  usefulness  for  the  remainder  of  their 
lives.  He  laid  down  certain  social  ends,  which  he  thought 
desirable,  and  which  he  believed  that  he  could  promote.  And 
when  one  of  these  was  fixed  in  his  mind,  and  set  definitely  before 

V  him,  he  became  the  most  circumspect  of  creatures.  Being  a  man 
of  action,  and  not  a  speculative  teacher,  he  took  care  not  to 
devote  his  energies  to  causes  in  which  he  did  not  see  a  good 
chance  of  making  some  effective  mark,  either  on  legislation  or  on 

^     important  sections  of  public  opinion.     "  I  am  cautious  to  a  fault," 

V  he  once  wrote,  "  and  nothing  will  be  done  by  me  that  has  not  the 
wisdom  of  the  serpent,  as  much  as  the  harmlessness  of  the  dove 
init."i 

This  was  only  another  way  of  saying  that  strong  enthusiasm 
in  him  was  no  hindrance  to  strong  sense.  Instead  of  increasing 
the  elements  of  friction  —  the  besetting  weakness  of  reformers 
and  dissidents  of  all  kinds  —  he  took  infinite  trouble  to  reduce 
these  elements  to  the  lowest  possible  point.  Hence  he  was  care- 
ful not  to  take  up  too  many  subjects  at  once,  because  the  antago- 
nism generated  by  each  would  have  been  made  worse  by  the 
antagonism  belonging  to  every  other,  and  he  would  have  called  up 
a  whole  host  of  enemies  together,  instead  of  leaving  himself  free 
to  deal  with  one  at  a  time.  A  correspondent  once  wrote  to  him 
on  this  point. 

"  You  have  opened  a  very  important  question,"  Cobden  replied, 
"in  respect  to  the  duty  of  a  public  man,  to  advocate  all  the 
changes  to  which  he  may  be  favorable.  I  have  often  reflected 
upon  this.  Bacon  says,  if  you  have  a  handful  of  truths,  open  but 
one  finger  at  a  time.  He  is  not  the  safest  moral  guide,  I  admit, 
but  I  am  not  sure  that  he  is  not  to  some  extent  right  in  this 
view.  If  we  are  to  declare  our  convictions  upon  all  subjects, 
and  if  abstract  reason  is  to  be  our  guide,  without  reference  to 
time  and  circumstance,  why  should  not  I,  for  instance,  avow  my- 
self a  republican  ?  A  republic  is  undeniably  the  most  rational 
form  of  government  for  free  men.  But  I  doubt  whether  I  should 
enhance  my  power  of  usefulness  by  advocating  that  form  of  gov- 
ernment for  England.  But  whilst  I  do  not  think  I  should  act 
wisely  by  putting  forth  all  I  think,  in  a  practical  way  I  so  far 
admit  the  principle  that  I  would  not  advocate  the  opposite  of 
what  I  am  convinced  is  the  truth  abstractedly.  And  this  brings 
me  to  my  old  ground  of  trying  to  do  one  thing  at  a  time.  By 
this  I  mean  merely  that  I  have  an  aptitude  for  certain  questions. 

1  To  S.  Lucas,  Jan.  27,  1862. 


JJt.37.]  COBDEN  as   an  AGITATOR.  137 

Other  people  have  a  talent  for  others,  and  I  think  a  division  of 
labor  is  necessary  for  success  in  political,  as  in  industrial  life."  ^ 

This  wise  economy  brought  its  reward.  Cobden  did  not  carry 
the  world  with  him  in  his  own  lifetime,  but  what  he  did  by  his 
method  was  to  bring  certain  principles  of  human  progress  in 
line  with  the  actual  politics  of  the  day.  He  did  not  create  a  ma- 
jority, but  he  achieved  the  first  difficult  step  of  creating  a  strong 
minority,  and  this  not  merely  of  sympathizers  in  the  closet,  but 
of  active  followers  in  the  nation. 

It  was  what  he  called  his  wisdom  of  the  serpent  that  gave 
Cobden  his  power  in  the  other  arts  of  a  successful  agitator,  which ^ 
are  less  conspicuous,  but  hardly  less  indispensable,  than  command- 
ing or  persuasive  oratory.  He  applied  the  same  qualities  in  the 
actual  business  of  the  League  which  he  brought  to  bear  in  his 
speeches.  He  was  indefatigable  in  his  industry,  fertile  in  inge- 
nious devices  for  bringing  the  objects  of  the  League  before  the  . 
country,  constantly  on  the  alert  for  surprising  a  hostile  post,  ^ 
never  losing  a  chance  of  turning  a  foe  or  a  neutral  into  a  friend, 
and  never  allowing  his  interest  about  the  end  for  which  he  was 
working  to  confuse  his  vigilant  concentration  upon  the  means. 
The  danger  of  great  confederacies  like  the  League  is  that  they^ 
become  mechanical.  Machinery  must  of  necessity  play  a  large 
part.  Circulars,  conferences,  subscriptions,  advertisements,  depu- 
tations, eternal  movings  and  secondings  —  all  these  things  are 
apt  to  bury  the  vital  part  of  a  movement  under  a  dreary  and  de- 
pressing fussiness,  that  makes  one  sometimes  wonder  whether 
the  best  means  of  saving  an  institution  might  not  be  to  establish 
a  society  for  overthrowing  it.  A  society  of  this  kind  seems  often 
a  short  way  for  choking  the  most  earnest  spirits  with  dusty  catch- 
words, that  are  incessantly  being  ground  out  by  the  treadmill  of 
agitation.  It  was  Cobden's  fresh  and  sanguine  temper  that  bore 
him  triumphantly  through  this  peril,  though  none  of  the  energetic 
men  with  whom  he  worked  was  more  busily  intent  on  every  de- 
tail of  their  organization.  He  had  none  of  that  fastidiousness 
which  is  repelled  by  the  vulgarities  of  a  proselytizing  machine. 
He  was  like  a  general  with  a  true  genius  for  war.  The  strategy 
was  a  delight  to  him ;  in  tactics  he  was  one  of  the  most  adroit  of 
men ;  he  looked  to  everything  ;  he  showed  the  boldness,  the  vigi- 
lance, the  tenacity,  the  resource,  of  a  great  commander.  Above 
all,  he  had  the  commander's  gift  of  encouraging  and  stimulating- 
others.  He  had  enthusiasm,  patience,  and  good  humor,  which  is 
the  most  valual)le  of  all  qualities,  in  a  campaign.  There  was  as 
little  bitterness  in  his  nature  as. in  any  human  being  that  ever 
lived :  so  little  that  he  was  able  to  say,  at  the  end  of  seven  years 

1  To  the  Rev.  Thomas  Spencer,  April  23,  1849. 


138  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1841. 

of  as  energetic  an  agitation  as  could  be  carried  on,  sliort  of  physi- 
cal force,  that  he  believed  he  had  not  made  a  single  enemy,  nor 
^    wounded  a  single  man's  personal  feelings. 

Critics    usually  singled   out  Cobden's   logical   faculty  as   his 

V  strongest  trait,  and  it  was  so  ;  but  he  was  naturally  inclined  to 
think  of  the  conclusions  of  his  logic  in  poetized  forms.  He  always 
delighted,  in  spite  of  the  wretched  simile  with  which  they  close, 
in  the  lines  in  which  Cowper  anticipated  the  high  economic  doc- 
trine :  — 

Again  —  the  band  of  commerce  was  design'd, 
To  associate  all  the  branches  of  mankind, 
And  if  a  boundless  plenty  be  the  robe, 
Trade  is  the  golden  Girdle  of  the  globe. 
Wise  to  promote  whatever  end  he  means, 
God  opens  fruitful  Nature's  various  scenes, 
Each  climate  needs  M'hat  other  climes  produce, 
And  offers  something  to  the  general  use  ; 
No  land  but  listens  to  the  common  call, 
And  in  return  receives  supply  from  all. 
This  genial  intercourse  and  mutual  aid 
Cheers  what  were  else  an  universal  shade. 
Calls  Nature  from  her  ivy-mantled  den, 
And  softens  human  rock-work  into  men. 

From  Cowper,  too,  he  was  never  weary  of  quoting  the  lines 
about  liberty :  — 

i        'T  is  liberty  alone  that  gives  the  flower 

Of  fleeting  life  its  lustre  and  perfume, 
I       And  we  are  weeds  without  it.     All  constraint 

Except  what  wisdom  lays  on  evil  men 

Is  evil. 

It  was  this  association  of  solid  doctrine  with  genial  enthusiasm 
and  high  ideals,  that  distinguished  Cobden  from  too  many  preacliers 

V  of  what  our  humorist  has  called  the  gospel  according  to  McCrowdy. 
It  was  this  kindly  imaginativeness  in  him  which  caught  men's 
hearts.  His  ideals  were  constantly  sneered  at  as  low,  material, 
common,  unworthy,  especially  by  the  class  whose  lives  are  one 
long  course  of  indolence,  dilettanteism,  and  sensuality.  George 
Combe  tells  how  one  evening  in  1852  he  was  in  the  drawing-room 
of  some  great  lady,  who,  amid  the  applause  of  her  friends,  de- 

I  nounced  Cobden's  policy  as  never  rising  beyond  a  mere  "  bag- 
man's millennium."  ^  This  was  the  clever  way,  among  the  selfish 
I  and  insolent,  of  saying  that  the  ideal  which  Cobden  cherished  was 
\y  comfort  for  the  mass,  not  luxury  for  the  few.  He  knew  much 
better  than  they,  that  material  comfort  is,  as  little  as  luxury,  the 
highest  satisfaction  of  men's  highest  capacities ;  but  he  could  well 
afford  to  scorn  the  demand  for  fine  ideals  of  life  on  the  lips  of  a 

1  Idfe  of  George  Combe,  11.  309. 


^T.37.]  COBDBN  AS  AN  AGITATOR.  139 

class  who  were  starving  the  workers  of  the  country  in  order  to 
save  their  own  rents. 

There  is  one  more  point  on  which  it  is  worth  while  to  say  a 
word  in  connection  with  Cobden's  character  as  an  agitator.  The 
great  danger  of  the  career  is  that  it  may  in  time  lessen  a  man's 
moral  self-possession.  Effect  becomes  the  decisive  consideration 
'instead  of  truth ;  a  good  meeting  grows  into  a  final  object  in  life ; 
the  end  of  existence  is  a  paradise  of  loud  and  prolonged  cheering ; 
and  character  is  gradually  destroyed  by  the  parasites  of  self-con- 
sciousness and  vanity.  On  one  occasion,  in  1845,  as  we  sliall  see, 
Cobden  was  betrayed,  excusably  enough,  into  some  strong  lan- 
guage about  Sir  Robert  Peel.  Miss  Martineau,  George  Combe, 
and  others,  rebuked  him  rather  sharply.  He  took  the  rebuke 
wdth  perfect  temper  and  humility,  and  in  seeking  to  excuse  him- 
self, he  described  his  feelings  about  public  life  in  words  of  which 
it  is  impossible  to  doubt  the  exact  truth.  "  You  must  not  judge 
me,"  he  said,  "  by  what  I  say  at  these  tumultuous  public  meet- 
ings. I  constantly  regret  the  necessity  of  violating  good  taste  and 
kind  feeling  in  my  public  harangues.  I  say  advisedly  necessity^ 
for  I  defy  anybody  to  keep  the  ear  of  the  public  for  seven  years 
upon  one  question,  without  studying  to  amuse  as  well  as  instruct. 
People  do  not  attend  public  meetings  to  be  taught,  but  to  be  ex- 
cited, flattered,  and  pleased.  If  they  are  simply  lectured,  they 
may  sit  out  the  lesson  for  once,  but  they  will  not  come  again ; 
and  as  I  have  required  them  again  and  again,  I  have  been  obliged 
to  amuse  them,  not  by  standing  on  my  head  or  eating  fire,  but  by 
kindred  feats  of  jugglery,  such  as  appeals  to  their  self-esteem, 
their  combativeness,  or  their  humor.  You  know  how  easily  in 
touching  these  feelings  one  degenerates  into  flattery,  vindictive- 
ness,  and  grossness.  I  really  sometimes  wonder  how  I  have  es- 
caped so  well  as  I  have  done.  By  nature  I  am  not  a  mob  orator. 
It  is  an  effort  for  me  to  speak  in  public.  The  applause  of  a  meet- 
ing has  no  charm  for  me.  When  I  address  an  audience,  it  is 
from  a  sense  of  duty  and  utility,  from  precisely  the  motive  which 
impels  me  to  write  an  article  in  the  League  newspaper,  and  with 
as  little  thought  of  personal  eclat.  Do  not,  therefore,  be  alarmed 
with  the  idea  that  my  head  will  be  turned  .with  applause.  It 
would  be  a  relief  to  me  if  I  knew  there  was  no  necessity  for  my 
ever  appearing  again  at  a  public  meeting."  ^ 

1  To  George  Combe,  Dec.  29,  1845. 


140  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1842- 

CHAPTEE  X. 

THE  NEW   CORN  LAW. 

In  the  interval  between  the  prorogation  and  the  great  session 
of  1842"  it  was  commonly  understood  that  the  Government  would 
"^  certainly  do  something  with  the  Corn  Law.  Expectation  was  not 
sanguine  among  the  men  in  the  north.  Some  of  the  more  im- 
patient were  so  irritated  by  the  delay,  that  they  even  wished  to 
agitate  for  the  overthrow  of  a  government  which  had  just  been 
appointed,  and  which  commanded  an  overwhelming  majority. 
Cobden  was  wiser.  To  one  of  the  shrewdest  of  his  allies  he  wrote 
some  useful  truth  :  — 

"  I  do  not  like  your  idea,"  he  said,  "  of  getting  the  deputies  to 
pass  a  vote  for  dismissing  the  Ministry.  That  would  be  taken  as 
a  partisan  movement  —  which  it  really  would  be  —  and  we  should 
lose  moral  influence  by  it.  Let  us  not  forget  that  we  were  very 
tolerant  of  the  Whig  Ministers,  even  after  Melbourne  had  laughed 
in  our  faces  and  called  us  madmen.  The  present  Government 
will  do  something.  It  is  the  House  of  Commons,  and  not  the 
y  Ministers,  that  we  ought  to  attack.  I  do  not  see  how  with  de- 
cency we  can  worry  the  Queen  to  change  her  Ministers,  whilst 
the  people's  representatives  have  made  her  take  to  Peel  against 
her  consent.  And  amongst  the  representatives  who  have  done 
this  are  those  from  Liverpool,  Warrington,  Wigan,  Leeds,  Black- 
burn, Lancaster,  etcetera.  Eeally,  when  we  think  of  these  places, 
it  ought  to  make  us  modest. 

"  I  have  been  thinking  a  good  deal  of  the  plan  of  district  meet- 
ings alluded  to  in  a  former  letter  to  Mr.  Eawson,  and  am  more 
and  more  favorable  to  it.  I  am  convinced  that  spontaneous 
efforts  through  the  country  would  tell  more  powerfully  upon  the 
aristocracy,  than  another  great  meeting  in  Manchester.  The 
question  has  been  too  much  confined  to  Manchester.  The  cotton 
lords  are  not  more  popular  than  the  landlords."  ^ 

Although  he  deprecated  the  agitation  of  impatience,  Cobden 
was  as  eager  and  as  active  as  anybody  else  in  the  agitation  of 
persuasion.  He  spoke  at  a  great  conference,  held  at  Derby,  of 
the  merchants  of  Derbyshire,  Nottinghamshire,  and  Leicestershire, 
where  he  made  a  vigorous  onslaught  upon  what  he  called  the 
Land-tax  fraud.  From  the  Trent  he  found  his  way  to  the  Clyde, 
while  Mr.  Bright  went  to  Dublin,  as  well  as  to  every  place  nearer 
/    home  where  he  could  get  men  to  listen  to  him.    In  all  the  centres 

\To  G.  Wilson.     Leamington,  Oct.  12,  1841. 


JET.  38.]  THE   NEW   CORN   LAW.  141 

of  industry  people  were  urged  to  form  associations,  to  get  up  peti- 
tions, and  to  hold  district  meetings  of  deputies.  They  were  to 
collect  information  as  to  the  state  of  trade,  the  rate  of  wages, 
the  extent  of  pauperism,  and  other  facts  bearing  upon  the  food 
monopoly,  as  all  these  things  affected  their  local  industry ;  the 
woollen  trade  at  Leeds,  the  iron  trade  at  Wolverhampton,  the 
earthenware  trade  in  the  Potteries,  the  flax  trade  at  Dundee, 
the  cotton  trade  at  Manchester  and  Glasgow. 

The  lecturers  continued  their  work.  One  of  them  went  among 
the  farmers  and  laborers  on  Sir  James  Graham's  estate,  where  he 
did  not  forget  the  landlord's  idyllic  catalogue  of  the  blessings  of 
the  rural  poor.  "  What ! "  cried  the  lecturer,  "  six  shillings  a" 
week  for  wages,  and  the  morning's  sun,  and  the  singing  of  birds, 
and  sportive  lambs,  and  winding  streams,  and  the  mountain  breeze, 
and  a  little  wholesome  labor  —  six  shillings  a  week,  and  all  this  ! 
And  nothing  to  do  with  your  six  shillings  a  week,  but  merely  to 
pay  your  rent,  buy  your  food,  clothe  yourselves  and  your  families, 
and  lay  by  something  for  old  age  !  Happy  people  ! "  In  many  " 
rural  districts  the  only  arguments  which  the  lecturers  wera  called 
upon  to  resist  were  stones  and  brickbats ;  and  even  in  some  of 
the  towns  they  still  encountered  rough  and  unfair  treatment  from 
members  of  the  respectable  classes,  and  their  hired  ruffians.  The 
Chartists  were  for  the  time  less  violently  hostile. 

Among  other  devices  this  autumn  was  that  of  a  great  bazaar, 
which  should  both  add  to  the  funds  of  the  League,  and  bring  the 
friends  of  its  objects  into  closer  personal  contact.  The  bazaar 
was  held  in  the  beginning  of  the  following  February,  in  the  Eoyal 
Theatre  at  Manchester.  It  was  a  great  success,  and  produced 
nearly  ten  thousand  pounds.  The  following  may  serve  to  show 
Cobden's  eye  for  the  small  things  of  agitation,  and  the  uncon- 
sidered trifles  that  affect  public  opinion  :  — 

"I  have  just  got  your  letter,  and  am  delighted  that  you  are 
satisfied  with  the  bazaar  prospects.  Really  I  wonder  how  you 
and  your  four  coadjutors  endure  the  immense  exertions  called  for 
in  this  undertaking.  You  must  not  look  upon  the  mere  moiiey^/ 
return  as  the  sole  test  of  success.  It  will  give  us  a  position  in 
the  public  eye  worth  all  the  outlay.  I  remember  twelve  months 
ago  feeling  apprehensive  that  the  monopolist  papers  would  have 
deterred  the  ladies  from  appearing  as  sellers  at  the  stalls  by  their 
blackguardism.  Certainly  three  years  ago  that  would  have  been 
the  tone  of  the  Herald,  Post,  and  Bull.  Now  what  a  marked 
change  is  seen  in  those  papers ;  not  a  joke  or  attempt  at  ribald 
wit.  All  is  fair  and  even  laudatory.  In  this  fact  alone  I  see  the 
evidence  of  a  great  moral  triumph  of  the  League.  Could  you  not 
get  a  succession  of  notices  in  the  papers  similar  to  the  Globe  last 
evening  ?     Might  not  R  employ  his  pen  in  that  way  ?     Tell  him 


142  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1842. 

not  to  be  too  rhapsodical  or  eulogistic  in  his  descriptions,  but  to 
give  from  day  to  day  a  few  facts  and  scraps  of  information  which 
would  induce  the  papers  to  insert  the  articles  as  news.  There 
should  be  a  description  of  the  arrivals  of  the  great  trains  filled 
with  country  Leaguers.  In  the  next  League  let  as  long  a  list  as 
possible  of  the  people  of  rank  who  have  attended  be  given  — 
^         this  is  very  important."  ^ 

Their  newspaper  deserves  a  word.     Its  energy  was  as  striking 
/as  the  energy  of  their  speakers.     Its  leading  articles,  many  of 
^    them  written  by  Cobden  and  Bright  themselves,  were  l)road  and 
weighty  statements  of   the  newest  aspect   of  their   case.     Any 
I         unlucky  phrase  that  feU.  from  a  monopolist  was  pounced  upon 
1         and   made   the   text   of  a  vivacious   paragraph.     No  incautious 
\        admission  from  the  other  side  w^as  ever  allowed  to  escape,  until 
all  the  most  damaging  conclusions  that  could  be  drawn  from  it 
had  been  worked  out  to  the  very  uttermost.     All  the  news  of  the 
day  was  scanned  with  a  vigilant  eye,  and  no  item  that  could  be 
turned  into  an  argument  or  an  illustration  was  left  unimproved. 
This  ingenuity  and  verve  saved  the  paper  from  the  monotony  of 
most  journals  of  a  single  purpose.     Its  pages  were  lighted  up  by 
reports  of  the  speeches  of  Cobden,  Bright,  and  Fox.     The  pictures 
with  which  it  abounds  of  the  condition  of  the  common  people, 
are  more  graphic  than  the  most  brilliant  compositions  of  mere 
literary  history.     It  does  not  affect  us  as  the  organ  of  a  sect ; 
though  it  preaches  from  one  text,  it  is  always  human  and  social. 
There  were  Poor  Men's  Songs,  Anti-Corn-Law  Hymns,  and  Anti- 
Bread-Tax  Collects.     Nor  did  the  editor  forget  Byron's  famous 
lines  from  the  Age  of  Bronze,  a  thousand  times  declaimed  in  this 
long  war  :  — 

See  these  inglorious  Cincinnati  swarm, 

Farmers  of  war,  dictators  of  the  farm  ; 

Their  ploughshare  was  the  svvord  in  hireling  hands, 

Their  fields  manured  by  gore  of  other  lands  ; 

Safe  in  their  barns,  these  Sabine  tillers  sent 

Their  brethren  out  to  battle  —  why  ?  for  rent ! 

Year  after  year  they  voted  cent  per  cent, 

Blood,  sweat,  and  tear- wrung  millions  —  why  ?  for  rent! 

They  roar'd,  they  dined,  they  drank,  they  swore  they  meant 

To  die  for  England  —  why  then  live  ?  for  rent! 

The  Peace  has  made  one  general  malcontent 

Of  these  high-market  patriots  ;  war  was  rent! 

Their  love  of  country,  millions  all  misspent, 

How  reconcile  ?  by  reconciling  rent! 

And  will  they  not  repay  the  treasures  lent  ? 

No  :  down  with  everything,  and  up  with  rent! 

Their  good,  ill,  health,  wealth,  joy,  or  discontent, 

Being,  end,  aim,  religion  —  rent,  rent,  rent! 


1  To  G.  Wilson,  November,  1841. 


^T.  38.]  THE  NEW   CORN  LAW.  143 

A  volunteer  in  Preston  this  winter  began  to  issue  on  his  own 
account  a  quaint  little  sheet  of  four  quarto  pages,  called  The 
Struggle,  and  sold  for  a  halfpenny.  It  had  no  connection  with  any 
association,  and  nobody  was  responsible  for  its  contents  but  the 
man  who  wrote,  printed,  and  sold  it.  In  two  years  eleven  hundred 
thousand  copies  had  been  circulated.  The  Struggle  is  the  very 
model  for  a  plain  man  who  wishes  to  affect  the  opinion  of  the 
humbler  class,  without  the  wasteful  and,  for  the  most  part,  inef- 
fectual machinery  of  a  great  society.  It  contains  in  number  after 
number  the  whole  arguments  of  the  matter  in  the  pithiest  form, 
and  in  language  as  direct  if  not  as  pure  as  Cobbett's.  Sometimes 
the  number  consists  simply  of  some  more  than  usually  graphic 
speech  by  Cobden  or  by  Fox.  There  are  racy  dialogues,  in  which 
the  landlord  always  gets  the  worst  of  it ;  and  terse  allegories  in 
which  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  or  the  Duke  of  Richmond  figures 
as  inauspiciously  as  Bunyan's  Mr.  Badman.  The  Bible  is  ran- 
sacked for  appropriate  texts,  from  the  simple  clause  in  the  Lord's 
Prayer  about  our  daily  bread,  down  to  Solomon's  saying :  "  He 
that  withholdeth  the  corn,  the  people  shall  curse  him ;  but  bless- 
ings shall  be  upon  the  head  of  him  that  selleth  it."  On  the  front 
page  of  each  number  was  a  woodcut,  as  rude  as  a  schoolboy's 
drawing,  but  full  of  spirit  and  cleverness,  whether  satirizing  the 
Government,  or  contrasting  swollen  landlords  with  famine-stricken 
operatives,  or  painting  some  homely  idyll  of  the  industrious  poor, 
to  point  the  greatest  of  political  morals,  that  "  domestic  comfort 
is  the  object  of  all  reforms." 

Cobden  had,  at  the  beginning  of  the  movement,  been  very  near 
to  securing  the  services,  in  the  way  of  pictorial  illustration,  of  a 
man  who  afterwards  became  very  famous.  This  was  Thackeray, 
then  only  known  to  a  small  public  as  the  author  of  the  Hoggarty 
Diamond.  "  Some  inventor  of  a  new  mode  of  engraving,"  Mr. 
Henry  Cole  wrote  to  Cobden,  "  told  Mr.  Thackeray  that  it  was 
applicable  to  the  designs  for  the  Corn  Laws.  Three  drawings  of 
your  Anglo-Polish  Allegory  have  been  made  and  have  failed. 
So  Thackeray  has  given  up  the  invention,  and  wood  engraving 

must  be  used.     This  will  materially  alter  the  expense I 

hope  you  will  think  as  well  of  the  accompanying  sketch  —  very 
rough,  of  course  —  as  all  I  have  shown  it  to,  do.  It  was  the  work 
of  only  a  few  minutes,  and  I  think,  with  its  corpses,  gibbet,  and 
flying  carrion  crow,  is  as  suggestive  as  you  can  wish.  We  both 
thought  that  a  common  soldier  would  be  better  understood  than 
any  more  allegorical  figure.  It  is  only  in  part  an  adaptation  of 
your  idea,  but  I  think  a  successful  one.  Figures  representing 
eagerness  of  exchange,  a  half-clothed  Pole  offering  bread,  and  a 
weaver  manufactures,  would  be  idea  enough  for  a  design  alone. 
Of  course,  there  may  be  any  changes  you  please  in  this  present 


144  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1842. 

design.  I  think  for  the  multitude  it  would  be  well  to  have  the 
ideas  very  simple  and  intelligible  to  all.  The  artist  is  a  genius, 
both  with  his  pencil  and  his  pen.  His  vocation  is  literary.  He 
is  full  of  humor  and  feeling.  Hitherto  he  has  not  had  occasion 
to  think  much  on  the  subject  of  Corn  Laws,  and  therefore  wants 
the  stuff  to  work  upon.  He  would  like  to  combine  both  writing 
and  drawing  when  sufficiently  primed,  and  then  he  would  write 
and  illustrate  ballads,  or  tales,  or  anything.  I  think  you  would 
find  him  a  most  effective  auxiliary,  and  perhaps  the  best  way  to 
fill  him  with  matter  for  illustrations  would  be  to  invite  him  to  see 
the  weavers,  their  mills,  shuttles,  etcetera.  If  you  like  the  sketch, 
perhaps  you  will  return  it  to  me,  and  I  will  put  it  in  the  way  of 
being  engraved. 

"He  will  set  about  Lord  Ashley  when  we  have  heard  your 
opinion  of  the  present  sketch.  Thackeray  is  the  writer  of  an 
article  in  the  last  number  of  the  Westminster  Beview,  on  French 
caricatures,  and  many  other  things.  For  some  time  he  managed 
the  Constitutional  newspaper.  He  is  a  college  friend  of  Charles 
Buller.  We  think  the  idea  of  an  ornamental  emblematical  heading 
of  the  Circular  good.  The  lower  class  of  readers  do  not  like  to 
have  to  cut  the  leaves  of  a  paper.  Another,  but  a  smaller  class, 
like  a  small-sized  page,  because  it  is  more  convenient  for  binding. 
Corn  Law  readers  lie,  I  suppose,  chiefly  among  the  former.  Will 
you  send  your  circular  to  Thomas  Carlyle,  Cheyne  Street,  Chelsea  ? 
He  was  quoted  in  last  week's  Circular,  and  is  making  studies  into 
the  condition  of  the  working  class."  ^ 

The  approach  of  the  time  for  the  assembling  of  Parliament  drew 
men's  minds  away  from  everything  else,  and  expectation  became 
centred  with  new  intensity  on  the  scheme  which  the  Minister 
would  devise  for  the  restoration  of  national  prosperity.  The  re- 
tirement of  an  important  member  of  the  Cabinet  during  the  recess 
had  greatly  quickened  public  excitement  among  both  Protectionists 
and  Free  Traders.  Both  felt  that  their  question  was  at  stake,  and 
that  the  Prime  Minister  would  not  allow  the  duty  on  corn  to  stand 
as  it  was.  Peel  has  told  us,  in  the  memoirs  published  after  his 
death,  exactly  what  happened  during  the  autumn  of  1841.  In 
conformity  with  his  general  practice,  he  brought  the  subject  under 
the  consideration  of  his  colleagues  in  written  memoranda.  These 
memoranda,  he  said,  afforded  the  best  opportunity  for  mature  con- 
sideration of  facts  and  arguments,  and  were  most  effectual  against 
misconstruction  and  hasty,  inconsiderate  decision.^  In  them  he 
now  pointed  out  with  unanswerable  force  the  evils  of  the  ex- 
isting system.  He  dwelt  more  especially  on  the  violent  fluctu- 
ations in  the  corn  duty,  and  the  consequent  derangements  and 

1  H.  Cole  to  B.  Cohden,  June  22,  1839.  2  Memoirs,  ii.  29. 


iET.38.]  THE   NEW   CORN   LAW.  145 

unsteadiness  of  the  markets.  He  showed  how  little  the  duties  on 
importation  could  do  towards  keeping  up  a  permanent  high  price. 
All  that  law  could  effect  was  to  provide  that,  so  long  as  corn  grown 
in  this  country  should  not  exceed  a  certain  price,  there  should  be 
no  serious  danger  from  competition  with  corn  grown  in  other  coun-  / 
tries.  What  was  that  price  ?  The  law  of  1815  had  assumed  that 
wheat  could  not  be  profitably  grown  at  a  lower  price  than  eighty 
shillings  a  quarter.  Events  had  shown  that  this  was  absurd  ;  the 
averages  of  a  number  of  years  came  to  fifty-six  shillings.  It 
seemed  wise,  then,  so  to  readjust  the  machinery  of  the  sliding 
scale  as  to  tend  to  secure  that  price.  / 

The  Duke  of  Buckingham,  whose  name  figures  so  often  in  the 
sarcasms  and  invectives  of  the  League,  at  once  resigned  his  seat  in 
the  Cabinet  rather  than  be  a  party  to  any  meddling  with  the  Corn 
Law  of  1828.  Even  those  who  remained  seemed  to  have  pressed 
for  an  understanding,  as  was  afterwards  openly  done  in  Parliament, 
that  whatever  amount  of  protection  was  set  up  by  the  new  law 
should  be  permanently  adhered  to.  This  guaranty,  Peel  was  far 
too  conscientious  to  consent  in  any  form  to  give.  The  Cabinet  at 
length,  with  many  misgivings,  assented  to  their  chiefs  arguments, 
and  for  the  time  the  party  was  saved. 

I  may  as  well  quote  here  a  passage  from  one  of  Cobden's  familiar 
letters  to  his  brother,  which  describes  the  episode  to  much  the  same 
effect  as  Peel's  more  dignified  narrative :  — 

"  Whilst  I  was  with  McGregor,  he  showed  me  a  copy  of  the 
scale  of  duties  which  he, had  prepared  under  Peel's  directions,  and 
which  he  proposed  to  the  Cabinet,  causing  Buckingham's  retire- 
ment, and  nearly  leading  to  a  break-up  altogether.  The  scale  was 
purposely  devised  to  be  as  nearly  as  possible  equal  to  an  Ss.  fixed 
duty.  It  was  8s.  at  56s.,  rising  a  shilling  of  duty  with  a  shilling 
fall  of  prices  till  it  reached  16s.,  which  was  the  maximum  duty, 
and  falling  a  shilling  in  duty  with  the  rise  of  a  shilling  in  price. 
With  the  exception  of  Ripon,  he  could  get  no  support  in  the 
Cabinet.  Lyndhurst,  like  an  old  fox,  refused  to  vote  (as  I  am 
told),  not  knowing  whether  Peel  or  the  monopolists  might  be 
conqueror,  and  being  himself  equally  happy  to  serve  God  or 
Mammon.  The  Duke  of  Bucks  got  hold  of  Eichmond,  who  se- 
cured Wellington,  who  by  the  aid  of  Stanley  and  Graham  frus- 
trated Peel's  intentions.  The  latter  told  them  that  no  other  prime 
minister  after  him  would  ever  take  office  to  give  the  landlords  even 
an  8s.  maximum  duty.  I  learn  from  several  quarters  that  Stanley 
is  one  of  Peel's  stoutest  opponents  against  any  alterations  of  a 
beneficial  character  in  the  monopolies.  Last  autumn  I  remember 
writing  to  Langton  (at  Heywood's)  a  letter  for  Birley's  eye,  in 
which  I  told  him  that,  if  Peel's  Cabinet  were  pressed  for  a  liberal 
corn  law  by  the  Lancashire  Conservatives,  it  would  aid  Peel  in 

10 


146  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1842. 

forcing  his  colleagues  to  go  along  with  him,  and  be  the  very  thing 
he  would  like.     McGregor  now  confirms  my  view."  ^ 

The  League  resolved  that  they  at  any  rate  would  leave  nothing 
undone  to  support  or  overawe  the  Prime  Minister.  On  the  eve 
of  the  session  several  hundreds  of  delegates,  including  Cobden, 
O'Connell,  Mr.  Bright,  Mr.  Villiers,  and  Mr.  Milner  Gibson,  as- 
sembled at  the  Crown  and  Anchor.  They  learned  that  the  Prime 
Minister  had  that  morning  refused  to  receive  a  deputation  from 
them,  on  the  ground  of  his  numerous  engagements.  The  Times 
had  a  contemptuous  article,  mocking  at  them  for  the  presumption 
and  impertinence  of  their  conduct.  These  deputies  from  country 
associations  and  religious  congregationalists,  instead  of  settling 
their  differences  with  one  another,  had  yet  on  one  single  point,  for- 
sooth, discovered  a  system  so  pure  that  in  a  single  interview  the 
greatest  and  most  experienced  of  statesmen  would  be  thrown  on 
his  haunches.  Perhaps  these  gentlemen  would  be  willing  to  offer 
their  services  as  members  of  Her  Majesty's  Privy  Council.  And 
so  forth,  in  that  vein  of  cheap  ridicule  with  which  the  ephemera  of 
the  leading  article  are  wont  to  buzz  about  all  new  men  and  un- 
familiar causes.  Eidicule  notwithstanding,  the  deputies  thronged 
down  to  the  House  of  Commons  with  something  so  like  tumult, 
that  the  police  turned  them  out  and  cleared  the  lobbies.  As  they 
crowded  round  the  approaches  to  the  House,  the  irritated  men 
hailed  with  abusive  names  those  whom  they  knew  to  be  champions 
of  the  abhorred  monopoly.  It  was  noticed  that  they  did  not  agree 
in  their  cries.  While  all  shouted  out,  " No  sliding  scale''  some 
called  for  a  fixed  duty,  and  others  clamored  for  "  Total  and  im- 
mediate repeair 

The  ministerial  plan  was  soon  known,  and  brought  scanty  com- 
fort to  the  men  of  the  north,  as  their  friends  rushed  down  the 
corridors  to  tell  them  what  it  was  to  be.  Sir  Eobert  Peel  could 
not  accept  their  explanation  of  the  prevailing  depression  and  dis- 
tress. That  was  due,  he  contended,  to  over-investment  of  borrowed 
capital  in  manufactures  ;  to  the  displacement  of  hand-loom  weav- 
ing by  steam  power  ;  to  monetary  difficulties  in  the  United  States, 
and  consequent  diminution  of  demand  for  our  manufactures ;  to 
interruption  of  the  China  trade  ;  finally,  to  alarms  of  war  in 
Europe,  and  the  stagnation  of  commerce  which  always  follows 
such  alarms.  To  alter  the  Corn  Law  would  touch  none  of  these 
sources  of  the  mischief,  and  would  be  no  remedy.  At  the  same 
time  he  thought  that  the  .Corn  Law,  as  it  stood,  was  capable  of 
improvement.  The  working  of  the  sliding  scale  of  1828  ^  was  in- 
jurious to  the  consumer,  because  it  kept  back  corn  until  it  was 
dearer ;  to  the  revenue,  by  the  forced  reduction  of  duty ;  to  the 

1  To  F.  Cobden,  June  22,  1842.         «  See  above,  pp.  Ill,  112. 


^T.38.]  THE   NEW   CORN   LAW.  147 

agriculturist,  by  withholding  corn  until  it  reached  the  highest 
price,  which  was  then  suddenly  snatched  from  him,  and  his  pro- 
tection defeated ;  and  to  commerce,  because  it  introduced  par- 
alyzing uncertainty.  How  then  ought  the  Corn  Law  to  be 
improved  ?  Not  by  changing  a  variable  into  a  fixed  duty,  be- 
cause a  fixed  duty  could  not  bear  the  strain  of  a  time  of  scarcity 
and  distress,  and  could  not  be  permanent.  It  must  be  by  modi- 
fying the  existing  principle  of  a  duty  varying  inversely  with  the 
price.  Now  what  was  the  price  which  would  encourage  the  home- 
growth  of  corn?  On  the  whole  it  was  for  the  interest  of  the 
agriculturist  that  the  price  of  wheat,  allowing  for  its  natural 
oscillations,  should  range  between  fifty-four  and  fifty-eight  shil- 
lings. The  legislature  could  not  guarantee  that  or  any  other 
price,  but  the  scale  might  best  be  constructed  with  a  view  to  this 
range  of  prices.  What  he  proposed,  then,  was  a  new  scale,  con- 
siderably decreasing  the  protection  hitherto  afforded  to  the  home- 
grower.i 

Peel  concluded  a  long  exposition  with  a  statement  of  those 
general  ideas  about  an  economic  and  national  system,  on  which 
his  proposals  rested.  They  were  these.  It  is  of  the  highest  im- 
portance to  the  welfare  of  all  classes  in  this  country,  that  care 
should  be  taken  that  the  main  sources  of  your  supply  of  corn 
should  be  derived  from  domestic  agriculture.  The  additional 
price  which  you  may  pay  in  effecting  that  object,  cannot  be  vin- 
dicated as  a  bonus  or  premium  to  agriculture,  but  only  on  the 
ground  of  its  being  advantageous  to  the  country  at  large.  The 
agriculturist  has  special  burdens,  and  you  are  entitled  to  place 
such  a  price  on  foreign  corn  as  is  equivalent  to  these  special  bur- 
dens. Any  additional  protection  to  them  can  only  be  vindicated 
on  the  ground  that  it  is  for  the  interest  of  the  country  generally. 
And  it  is  for  the  interest  of  all  classes  that  we  should  be  paying 
occasionally  a  small  additional  sum  upon  our  own  domestic 
produce,  in  order  that  we  may  thereby  establish  a  security  and 
insurance  against  the  calamities  that  would  ensue  if  we  became 
altogether,  or  in  a  great  part,  dependent  upon  foreign  countries 
for  our  supply .2 

1  As  this  became  the  Corn  Law  denounced  by  Cobden  during  the  agitation  from 
1842  to  1846,  it  is  well  to  describe  the  difference  between  the  new  scale  and  that  of 
the  Act  of  1828  in  Peel's  own  words  :  —  "  When  corn  is  at  59s.  and  under  60s.,  the 
duty  at  present  is  27s.  Sd.  When  corn  is  between  those  prices,  the  duty  I  proj)ose 
is  13s.  When  the  price  of  corn  is  at  50s.  the  existing  duty  is  36s.  8d,  increasing  as 
the  price  falls  ;  instead  of  which  I  propose,  when  corn  is  at  50s.,  that  the  duty  shall 
only  be  20s.  and  that  that  duty  shall  in  no  case  be  exceeded.  (Hear,  hear.)  At 
56s.  the  existing  duty  is  30s,  8d.;  the  duty  I  propose  at  that  price  is  16s.  At  60s\ 
the  existing  duty  is  26s.  8d. ;  the  duty  I  propose  at  that  price  is  1 2s.  At  63s.  the 
existing  duty  is  23s.  8d;  the  duty  I  propose  is  9s,  At  64s.  the  existing  duty  is  22s. 
8d.;  the  duty  I  propose  is  8s.  At  70s.  the  existing  duty  is  lOs.  8d.;  the  duty  I 
propose  is  5s." 

2  February  9,  1842. 


n/ 


148  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1842. 

When  the  Minister  sat  down,  Lord  John  Eussell  said  a  few 
formal  words,  and  Peel  added  some  explanation  which  took  a  mo- 
ment or  two.  Cobden,  according  to  a  hostile  reporter,  had  been 
"  looking  very  lachrymose  all  tlie  evening,"  and  he  now  rose — it 
is  interesting  to  notice  contemporary  estimates  of  important  men 
whose  importance  has  not  yet  been  stamped  —  "  for  the  purpose 
of  inflicting  one  of  his  stereotyped  harangues  on  the  House."  He  i 
did  not  do  this,  but  he  wound  up  the  proceedings  by  a  short  and 
veliement  declaration  that  he  could  not  allow  a  moment  to  pass 
in  denouncing  the  proposed  measure  as  a  bitter  insult  to  a  suffer- 
ing natipn. 

Cobden's  reception  of  the"  Ministerial  plan  was  loudly  re-echoed 
in  the  north  of  England.  The  news  of  the  retention  of  the  sliding 
scale  was  received  with  angry  disgust  throughout  the  manufac- 
turing districts.  Tiiousands  of  petitions,  with  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  signatures,  were  sent  up  to  Cobden  and  otlier  members 
to  lay  before  Parliament.  The  ordinary  places  of  public  meeting 
were  not  large  enough  to  hold  the  thousands  of  exasperated 
men,  who  had  just  found  from  the  newspapers  that  the  Gov- 
ernment would  not  give  way.  In  cold  and  rain  they  assembled 
in  the  open  spaces  of  their  towns  to  listen  to  speeches,  and  to 
pass  resolutions,  denouncing  Sir  Eobert  Peel's  measure  as  an 
/  insult  and  a  mockery  to  a  distressed  population.  Tlie  Prime 
Minister  was  formally  accused  of  offering  indignity  and  contempt 
to  the  working  classes ;  of  sacrificing  the  rights  of  the  poor  to 
the  selfish  interests  of  an  unfeeling  and  avaricious  aristocracy ; 
*  of  creating  wealth,  luxury,  and  splendor  for-a  class,  out  of  the  ab- 
ject misery  of  the  millions.  His  effigy  was  carried  on  gibbets  in 
contumely  through  the  streets  of  towns  like  Stockport  and  Poch- 
dale,  to  the  sound  of  drums  and  fifes,  and  then,  amid  the  execra- 
tion of  multitudes,  hurled  into  the  flames.  In  some  j)laces  the 
fierce  ceremony  was  preceded  by  a  mock  trial,  in  which  the  crimi- 
nal was  swiftly  condemned,  sentenced,  and  thrown  into  the  bon- 
fire as  a  traitor  to  his  country,  while  the  crowd  shouted  their 
prayer  that  so  might  all  oppressors  of  the  people  perish. 

Considering  Cobden's  untiring  promptitude  in  seizing  every  oc- 
casion of  enforcing  his  cause  upon  tlie  House,  it  is  odd  that  he 
sliould  not  have  spoken  in  the  debate  in  which  the  new  plan  was 
most  directly  under  discussion.  The  debate  ended  in  a  majority 
for  the  Minister  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-three.  Mr.  Yilliers, 
however,  with  the  judicious  neglect  of  tact  that  is  always  so  pro- 
voking to  neutrals,  and  without  which  no  unpopular  cause  ever 
prospers,  immediately  after  the  House  had  decided  that  corn 
should  be  subject  to  a  variable  and  not  a  fixed  duty,  proceeded 
to  invite  the  same  House  to  decide  that  it  should  be  subject 
^^^     to  no  duty  at  all  (Feb.  18).     The  first  debate  had  lasted  for  four 


JEt.  88.]  THE   NEW   CORN   LAW.  149 

nights,  and  the  second  upon  the  same  topics  now  lasted  for  five 
more.  On  the  last  of  them  (Feb.  24)  Cobden  made  his  speech. i. 
He  dealt  with  the  main  propositions  which  Peel  had  laid  down 
as  the  defence  of  the  new  BilL  The  Minister  had  confessed,  and 
he  now  repeated  it  in  reply  to  a  direct  challenge,  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  fix  the  price  of  food  by  legislative  enactment.  Then 
for  what  were  they  legislating  ?  At  least  to  keep  up  the  price  of 
food.  Why  not  try  in  the  same  way  to  keep  up  the  price  of  cot- 
tons, woollens,  and  silks  ?  The  fact  that  they  did  not  try  this,  was 
the  simple  and  open  avowal  that  they  were  met  there  to  legislate 
for  a  class,  against  the  people.  The  price  of  cotton  had  fallen 
thirty  per  cent,  in  ten  years,  and  the  price  of  ironmongery  had 
fallen  as  much.  Yet  the  ironmonger  was  forced  to  exchange  his 
goods  with  the  agriculturist  for  the  produce  of  the  land,  at  the 
present  high  price  of  corn.  Was  this  fair  and  reasonable  ?  Could 
it  be  called  legislation  at  all  ?  Assuredly  it  was  not  honest  legis- 
lation. Why  should  there  not  be  a  sliding  scale  for  wages  ?  If  they 
admitted  that  wages  could  not  be  artificially  sustained  at  a  certain 
price,  why  should  a  law  be  passed  to  keep  up  the  price  of  wheat  ? 
But  the  land,  they  said,  was  subject  to  heavy  burdens.  For  every 
one  special  burden,  he  could  show  ten  special  exemptions.  Even 
if  the  exclusive  burdens  on  land  were  proved,  the  proper  remedy 
was  to  remove  them,  and  not  to  tax  the  food  of  the  people. 

An  excellent  point  was  made  by  the  exposure  of  the  fallacy, 
that  low  wages  are  the  same  thing  as  cheap  labor.  And  this 
proved  to  be  of  the  highest  importance,  as  an  element  in  Sir 
Robert  Peel's  conversion.  He  admitted  afterwards  that  he  had 
accepted  this  fallacy  without  proper  examination,  and  that  its 
overthrow  was  one  of  the  things  which  most  powerfully  affected 
his  opinions  on  a  protective  system.  Apart  from  his  general 
demonstration  of  the  truth  in  this  respect,  Cobden  now  showed 
that  the  highly  paid  labor  of  England  was  proved  to  be  the  cheap- 
est labor  in  the  world.  The  manufacturers  might  have  credit  for 
taking  a  more  enlightened  view  of  their  own  interest  than  to  sup- 
pose that  the  impoverishment  of  the  multitude — the  great  con- 
sumers of  all  that  they  produce  —  could  ever  tend  to  promote  the 
prosperity  of  the  manufacturers.  "  I  will  tell  the  House,  that  by 
deteriorating  the  population,  of  which  they  ought  to  be  so  proud, 
they  will  run  the  risk  of  spoiling,  not  merely  the  animal,  but  the 
intellectual  creature.  It  is  not  a  potato-fed  race  that  will  ever  lead 
the  way  in  arts,  arms,  or  commerce." 

In  the  course  of  his  speech,  which  was  not  in  the  strong  vein 
that  greater  experience  soon  made  easy  to  him,  Cobden  had  talked 
of  the  ignorance  on  the  question  which  prevailed  among  the  Tory 

1  CohdeTCs  Speeches,  Mr.  Rogers's  edition.     Vol.  i.  15-28.     [Edition  of  1870.] 


150  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  •  [1842. 

members.  "  Yes,"  he  exclaimed,  when  his  adversaries  cried  out 
against  this  vigorous  thrust,  "  I  have  never  seen  their  ignorance 
equalled  among  any  equal  number  of  workingmen  in  the  north 
of  England."  And  he  reminded  them  that  when  the  Corn  Law  of 
1815  was  passed,  and  when  eminent  men  of  both  parties  honestly 
thought  that  wages  followed  the  price  of  corn,  the  great  multitude 
of  the  nation,  without  the  aid  of  learning,  "  with  that  intuitive 
sagacity  which  had  given  rise  to  the  adage,  '  The  voice  of  the 
people  is  the  voice  of  God,' "  foresaw  what  the  effect  of  the  meas- 
ure would  be  upon  wages,  and  from  1815  to  1819  there  never 
was  a  great  public  meeting  at  Manchester  at  which  there  was  not 
some  banner  inscribed  with  the  words,  No  Corn  Laws. 

For  these  taunts,  the  House  took  a  speedy  revenge.  •  When 
Cobden  sat  down,  the  benches  were  crowded,  and  the  member  for 
Knaresborough  got  up.  In  a  speech  ten  days  before,  Mr.  Ferrand 
had  said  that  the  member  for  Stockport  had  during  the  last  twelve 
years  accumulated  half  a  million  of  money ;  and  that  when  night 
after  night,  during  the  last  session,  he  was  asserting  that  the  Corn 
Laws  had  ruined  the  trade  in  Lancashire,  he  was  actually  at  that 
very  time  running  his  works  both  night  and  day.  This  was  only 
one  item  in  a  gross  and  violent  attack  on  the  whole  class  of 
northern  manufacturers.  He  now  returned  to  the  charge  with 
greater  excitement  than  before.  He  quoted  a  great  number  of 
instances,  where  the  system  of  truck  was  forced  upon  the  helpless 
workmen.  The  artisans,  he  said,  were  compelled  to  live  in  cot- 
tages belonging  to  the  employer,  and"  to  pay  rent  higher  by  one 
tenth  than  their  proper  value.  They  were  poisoned  by  the  vile 
rags  and  devil's  dust  with  which  they  had  to  work,  and  which 
the  masters  use  for  the  fraudulent  adulteration  of  their  cloths. 
As  for  scarcity  of  flour,  it  arose  from  the  consumption  of  that 
article  by  the  manufacturers,  in  a  paste  with  which  they  dis- 
honestly daubed  the  face  of  their  calicoes. 

TJie  country  gentlemen  shouted  with  exultation.  They  were 
ill  qualified  to  judge  the  worth  of  these  extravagant  denuncia- 
tions. The  towns  of  Lancashire  were  more  unfamiliar  to  them 
in  those  days  than  Denver  or  Omaha  are  in  our  own,  and  any 
atrocity  was  credible  of  those  who  lived  and  worked  within  them. 
Tlie  whole  conception  of  modern  manufacturing  industry  was  as 
horrible  as  it  was  strange  in  their  eyes.  We  have  already  seen 
Sir  James  Graham's  description  of  them  as  more  cruel  than  the 
icy  wastes  of  Siberia,  or  the  burning  shores  of  Mauritius.  The 
chief  newspaper  of  the  country  party  boldly  declared  that  England 
would  be  as  great  and  powerful,  and  all  useful  Englishmen  would 
be  as  rich  as  they  are,  'though  all  the  manufacturing  houses  in  Great 
Britain  should  be  engulfed  in  ruin.  The  same  paper  pleased  the 
taste  of  its  subscribers  by  saying  that  there  was  not  a  single  mill- 


^T.38.]  THE  NEW  CORN  LAW.  151 

owner  who  would  not  compound  for  the  destruction  of  all  the 
manufacturing  industry  of  England,  on  condition  that  during  that 
period  he  should  have  full  work  and  high  profits  for  his  mill, 
capital,  and  credit.^  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  by  the  ma- 
jority of  the  Parliament  of  1841  the  cotton-spinners  of  the  north 
were  regarded  with  the  same  abhorrence  as  was  common  twenty 
years  ago  towards  such  representatives  of  Trade  Unionism  as  were 
discovered  in  Sheffield. 

Cobden  was  not  cowed  by  the  furious  scene.  Amid  cries  of 
"  explain,"  he  rose  to  tell  the  House  very  quietly,  that  it  was  not 
his  mission  to  indulge  in  gross  personalities.  He  assured  the 
members  who  desired  a  partisan  warfare  of  this  kind,  that  nothing 
should  drive  him  into  a  personal  altercation  ;  and  he  considered 
the  dignity  of  the  House  in  some  danger  when  he  found  language 
such  as  they  had  been  listening  to  for  the  last  half-hour  received 
with  so  much  complacency  by  the  Ministers,  and  with  such  cheers 
by  the  party  at  their  back. 

There  was  violent  irritation  among  his  friends  at  the  attack  on 
him  and  their  class,  caused  less  by  the  exaggeration  of  the  attack 
itself,  than  by  the  exultant  spirit  in  which  it  was  received  by  the 
House.  Neighbors  in  Lancashire  came  forward  to  testify  that 
both  at  Sabden  and  at  Cross  Hall  he  had  set  up  a  school,  a  library, 
and  a  news-room  for  the  benefit  of  old  and  young  in  his  employ  ; 
that  the  workmen  of  his  district  were  eager  for  a  place  in  his 
works ;  and  that  to  no  one  did  Mr.  Ferrand's  remarks  apply  with 
less  truth  than  to  Cobden  and  his  partners  for  the  last  ten  years. 
Cobden  cared  little  for  what  had  been  said  about  him,  but  he 
seems  to  have  felt  some  dissatisfaction  with  the  momentary  hesi- 
tation of  the  League  as  to  the  larger  question  of  the  new  law. 
He  wrote  to  his  brother  :  — 

"  You  never  witnessed  such  a  scene  as  that  in  the  House  of 
Commons  when  Ferrand  was  speaking  the  other  night.  The 
Tories  were  literally  frantic  with  delight.  Every  sentence  he 
uttered  was  caught  up  and  cheered  by  a  large  majority,  far  more 
vehemently  than  anything  that  ever  fell  from  Peel  or  Macaulay. 
It  was  not  ironical  cheering,  but  downright  hearty  approbation. 
I  have  not  the  least  doubt  that  the  M.  P.  for  Knaresborough  spoke 
the  honest  convictions  of  a  majority  of  the  members  present.  The 
exhibition  was  premeditated  and  got  up  for  the  occasion.  I  was 
told  several  days  before  at  the  club  that  Ferrand  was  to  follow 
me  in  the  debate.  He  was  planted  (to  use  a  vulgar  phrase)  upon 
me  by  his  party.  I  finished  speaking  at  about  a  quarter-past 
eleven,  and  it  was  remarked  by  two  or  three  on  our  side  that  just 
before  I  sat  down  Sir  George  Clerk  of  the  Treasury  went  and  whis- 

^  Quoted  in  Prentice's  History  of  the  League,  i.  284. 


152  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1842. 

pered  to  Green,  the  chairman  of  committee,  and  directed  his  eye 
towards  Ferrand,  so  that,  notwithstanding  that  others  tried  to  fol- 
low me,  he  called  straight  for  the  Knaresborough  hero.  Away  he 
went  with  the  attitudes  of  a  prize-hghter,  and  the  voice  of  a  bull. 
.  ,  .  .  Just  at  the  time  when  I  was  speaking  the  members  swarmed 
into  the  House  from  the  dinner-tables,  and  they  were  in  a  right 

state  for   supporting  Master  Ferrand.     Colonel  S plied  the 

fellow  with  oranges  to  suck,  in  an  affectionate  way  that  resembled 
a  monkey  fondling  a  bear.  What  do  your  Tories  think  of  their 
party  in  the  House  ?  I  find  that  nothing  seems  to  be  considered 
so  decided  a  stigma,  as  to  brand  a  man  as  a  mill -owner.  Thus 
you  see  that  the  charge  against  me  of  working  a  mill  at  night 
would  not  be  given  up,  even  although  it  was  proved  to  be  a  print- 
works. I  hope  Ferrand  by  getting  rope  enough  will  settle  him- 
self soon.     Tory  praise  will  soon  carry  him  off  his  legs. 

"  From  all  that  I  hear,  your  people  in  Lancashire  seem  to  be 
swayed  to  and  fro  like  the  grass  by  a  summer's  wind,  without 
any  particular  progress.  I  suppose  it  will  settle  down  into  more 
quiet  work  in  the  way  of  tracts  and  lectures.  I  should  like  to 
have  carried  it  by  a  couij,  but  that  is  not  possible.  It  seems 
generally  admitted  up  here  by  all  parties  that  it  is  now  only  a 
question  of  time.  Lord  Lowther  said  to  a  friend  of  Villiers  the 
other  day,  after  the  division  of  ninety,  that  he  did  not  think  it 
would  take  more  than  three  years  to  abolish  the  Corn  Laws ;  and 
Rawson  and  I  were  taking  tea  at  Bellamy's,  when  a  party  of 
Tory  members  at  another  table  agreed  that  it  would  come  to  a 
5s.  fixed  duty  in  about  three  years.  The  Tories  have  not  liked 
the  debate.  Peel  feels  that  he  has  not  come  out  of  it  well.  He 
looks  dissatisfied  with  himself,  and  I  am  told  he  is  not  in  good 
health.     What  will  he  be  by  the  end  of  the  session  ? "  ^ 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that  the  Leaguers,  in  spite  of  their  mod- 
erate expectations,  were  taken  aback  by  the  heavy  blow  which 
the  Minister  had  just  dealt  them.  They  had  hoped  against  hope, 
and  had  been  too  full  of  faith  in  their  own  arguments  to  doubt 
their  effect  upon  others.  The  ways  of  Parliaments  were  as 
strange  to  them  as  the  ways  of  mill-owners  were  to  the  House 
of  Commons.  For  a  single  moment  they  were  staggered ;  Cobden 
was  for  an  instant  or  two  fired  by  a  violent  impulse,  which  sood, 
however,  yielded  to  his  usual  good  sense.  "  I  feel  some  little 
difficulty,"  he  wrote  to  Mr.  George  Wilson,  "in  offering  my 
advice  as  to  the  course  which  the  League  should  henceforth 
pursue.  That  course  depends  very  much  upon  the  spirit  of  the 
people  who  are  acting  with  us.  If  they  were  all  of  my  temper 
in  the  matter,  we  would  soon  bring  it  to  an  issue.     I  presume, 

1  To  F.  Cobden,  Feb.  28,  1842. 


^T.38.]  THE  NEW  CORN  LAW.  153 

however,  that  your  friends  are  not  up  to  the  mark  for  a  general 
fiscal  revolt,  and  I  know  of  no  other  plan  of  peaceful  resistance. 
The  question  is,  then,  as  to  the  plan  of  agitation  for  the 
'  future.  The  idea  of  ever  petitioning  the  present  House  of  Com- 
mons again  upon  the  Corn  Laws  should  be  publicly  renounced. 
It  involves  great  trouble  and  expense,  and  will  do  no  good.  If 
we  had  another  election,  the  case  would  be  different,  but  there 
is  no  use  in  petitioning  the  present  House.  I  think  our  lecturers 
should  be  thown  upon  the  boroughs,  particularly  in  the  rural 
districts  where  we  have  been  opposed.  A  well  prepared  account 
should  be  taken  of  the  state  of  all  the  boroughs  in  the  kingdom 
in  reference  to  our  question.  They  should  be  classihed,  and  put 
into  lists  of  safe,  tolerahly  safe,  doubtful,  desperate,  hopeless.  Our 
whole  strength  should  be  then  thrown  upon  the  doubtfuls. 
Electoral  Committees  should  be  formed  in  each  borough  to  look 
after  the  registration,  and  we  ought,  if  needful,  to  incur  some 
expenditure  in  this  department.  Much  will  depend  on  our  get- 
ting a  good  working  Committee  in  every  borough  to  look  after 
the  register,  and  to  agitate  our  question. 

"  Now  as  respects  any  great  demonstration  of  numbers  against 
the  passing  of  the  present  law.  It  has  been  suggested  that  we 
ought  to  hold  a  meeting  on  Kersall  Moor.  But  I  presume  that 
would  be  a  joint  Suffrage  and  Corn  Law  meeting,  which  would 
not  aid  our  cause  at  present.  The  middle  class  must  be  still 
further  pinched  and  disappointed  before  they  will  go  to  that. 
I  quite  agree  with  you  that  we  must  keep  the  League  as  a  body 
wholly  distinct  from  the  suffrage  movement.  But  at  the  same 
time  I  think  the  more  that  individuals  connected  prominently 
with  the  League  join  the  suffrage  party  the  better.  I  shall  take 
the  first  opportunity  in  the  House  of  avowing  myself  for  the 
suffrage  to  every  man. 

"  After  all,  I  hardly  entertain  a  hope  that  we  shall  effect  our 
object  by  old  and  regular  methods;  accidents  may  aid  us,  but 
I  do  not  see  my  way  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things  to  beating 
down  the  power  of  the  aristocracy."  ^ 

Mr.  Bright  made  various  suggestions,  and  Cobden  replied  to 
them  with  provisional  assent :  — 

"  I  am  afraid  you  must  not  calculate  on  my  attending  at  your 
tea-party.  During  the  recess  I  shall  have  some  private  matters 
to  attend  to,  and  I  shall  endeavor  to  avoid  public  meetings  as 
far  as  possible.  I  have  been  thinking  of  our  future  plans,  and 
am  more  and  more  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  keeping  our- 
selves free  from  all  other  questions.  I  am  much  more  of  opinion, 
upon  reflection,  of  the  necessity  of  some  such  bold  demonstmtion 

1  To  Q.  Wilson,  Feb.  27,  1842. 


154  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1842. 

in  the  way  of  organization  and  the  securing  a  large  fund,  as 
you  were  alluding  to.  Something  must  be  done  to  secure  the 
ground,  and  thus  prevent  its  being  occupied  by  any  other  party. 
Nothing  would  so  much  attain  that  object  as  to  get  a  large  fund 
secured.  I  like  the  idea  of  an  Anti-Corn-Law  rent.  Unless 
some  such  demonstration  of  renewed  life  and  resolution  be  made 
immediately  after  the  passing  of  the  Corn  Law,  it  will  be  suspected 
that  we  are  giving  up  the  cause."  ^ 

Cobden  seems  to  have  cooled  down  to  a  sober  view  of  the 
situation  when  he  wrote  to  his  brotlier,  a  fortnight  after  the 
affair  of  Mr.  Ferrand  :  — 

"  There  is  a  curious  symptom  breaking  out  in  the  Tory  ranks. 
Several  of  the  young  aristocrats  are  evidently  more  liberal  than 
their  leaders,  and  they  have  talked  rationally  about  an  ultimate 
Free  Trade.  I  hear  a  good  deal  of  this  talk  in  the  tea  and  din- 
ing-rooms. In  fact  the  Tory  aristocracy  are  liberals  m  feeling, 
compared  with  your  genuine  political  bigot,  a  cotton-spinning 
Tory.  I  see  no  other  course  for  us  but  a  renewed  agitation  of 
the  agricultural  districts,  where  I  expect  there  will  be  a  good 
deal  of  discontent  erelong.  I  mean  in  the  small  rural  towns. 
Bad  trade  in  the  manufacturing  towns  will,  I  suspect,  very  soon 
convert  the  Tories,  or  break  them,  the  next  best  thing."  ^ 

No  new  line  of  action  was  hit  upon  until  the  end  of  the  ses- 
sion.    In  the  mean  time,  so  far  as  the  agitation  out  of  doors  went, 

'  /  Cobden's  mind  was  incessantly  turning  over  plans  for  strength- 
ening the  connections  of  the  League.  To  Mr.  Ashworth  he 
wrote  :  — 

"  It  has  struck  me  that  it  would  be  well  to  try  to  engraft  our 
Free  Trade  agitation  upon  the  Peace  movement.  They  are  one 
and  the  same  cause.  It  has  often  been  to  me  a  matter  of  the 
greatest  surprise,  that  the  Friends  have  not  taken  up  the  ques- 
tion of  Free  Trade  as  the  means  —  and  I  believe  the  only  human 
means  —  of  effecting  universal  and  permanent  peace.  The  efforts 
of  the  Peace  Societies,  however  laudable,  can  never  be  success- 

/  ful  so  long  as  the  nations  maintain  their  present  system  of  isola- 
tion. The  Colonial  system,  with  all  its  dazzling  appeals  to  the 
passions  of  the  people,  can  never  be  got  rid  of  except  by  the 
indirect  process  of  Free  Trade,  which  will  gradually  and  im- 
perceptibly loose  the  bands  which  unite  our  Colonies  to  us  by 
a  mistaken  notion  of  self-interest.  Yet  the  Colonial  policy  of 
Europe  has  been  the  chief  source  of  wars  for  the  last  hundred 
and  hfty  years.  Again,  Free  Trade,  by  perfecting  the  intercourse, 
and  securing  the  dependence  of  countries  one  upon  another,  must 

1  To  Mr.  Bright,  March  7,  1842.  2  To  F.  Cobden,  March  10,  1842. 


iET.38.]  THE  NEW   CORN  LAW.  155 

inevitably  snatch  the  power  from  the  governments  to  plunge  their 
people  into  wars.  What  do  you  think  of  changing  your  plan  of 
a  prize  essay,  from  the  Corn  Law  to  Tree  Trade  as  the  best 
human  mean's  for  securing  universal  and  permanent  peace/  This 
would  be  a  good  and  appropriate  prize  to  be  given  by  members  \ 
of  the  Society  of  Friends.  At  all  events,  in  any  way  possible  I  / 
should  like  to  see  the  London  Friends  interested  in  the  question  / 
of  the  Corn  Law  and  Free  Trade.  They  have  a  good  deal  of 
influence  over  the  City  moneyed  interest,  which  has  the  ear  of  the 
Government."  ^ 

Besides  these  tentative  projects  of  new  alliances,  he  watched 
vigilantly  every  chance  of  suggesting  a  point  to  his  allies  outside. 
To  Mr.  Bright  he  wrote  :  — 

"  If  you  have  a  leisure  hour,  I  wish  you  would  write  an  article 
upon  the  subject  of  the  Queen's  Letter  to  the  parsons,  ordering 
collections  in  the  churches  for  the  distressed.  Here  is  a  good 
opportunity  for  doing  justice  to  the  Dissenting  ministers,  who 
met  last  year  to  proclaim  the  miseries  of  the  people,  and  to  pro- 
pose a  better  remedy  than  almsgiving.  The  Church  clergy  are 
almost  to  a  man  guilty  of  causing  the  present  distress  by  uphold- 
ing the  Corn  Law,  they  having  themselves  an  interest  in  the  high 
price  of  hread,  and  their  present  efforts  must  be  viewed  as  tardy 
and  inefficient,  if  not  hypocritical. 

"  Again,  show  how  futile  it  must  be  to  try  to  subsist  the  manu- 
facturing population  upon  charitable  donations.  The  wages  paid 
in  the  cotton  trade  alone  amount  to  twenty  millions  a  year. 
Reduce  that  amount  even  ten  per  cent,  and  how  could  it  be  made 
up  by  charity  ?  If  you  have  also  leisure  for  another  article,  make 
a  swingeing  assault  upon  the  last  general  election,  and  argue  from 
the  disclosures  made  by  the  House  of  Commons  itself,  that  we 
the  Anti-Corn-Law  party  were  not  defeated,  but  virtually  swin- 
dled and  plundered  of  our  triumph  at  the  hustings."  ^ 

1  To  Henry  Ashworth,  April  12,  1842. 

2  To  Mr.  Bright,  May  12,  1842.  In  the  following  number  of  the  Anii-Bread- 
Tax  Circular  (May  19),  articles  on  the  two  subjects  here  suggested  by  Cobden 
duly  appeared.  "The  clergy  of  the  establishment,"  says  the  writer,  with  good 
strong  plainness  of  speech,  "would  do  well  to  reflect  upon  their  position  in  this 
matter.  They  have,  with  very  few  exceptions,  upheld  to  the  uttermost  the  unnat- 
ural system,  which,  after  working  during  a  period  of  twenty-seven  years,  causing 
more  or  less  of  suffering  throughout  the  whole  of  its  existence,  has  at  length  brought 
the  nation  to  the  verge  of  ruin.  They  have  almost  to  a  man  been  the  ever-active 
agents  and  allies  of  tne  monopolist  party,  and  their  restless  energy  in  the  woi-st  of 
causes  has  been  mainly  instrumental  in  carrying  into  office  a  Ministry  whose  only 
pledge  was  that  the  interests  of  the  nation  should  be  held  subservient  to  the  inter- 
ests of  the  land  and  colonial  monopolists We  fear  that  any  attempt  to 

raise   contributions   from   the  clergy,    or  by  their  agency,   can  only  subject  that 

body  to  the  charge  of  gross  ignorance  or  gross  hypocrisy Their  conduct 

contrasts  strongly  with  the  noble  efforts  of  the  Christian  ministers  who  last  year 
assembled  in  Manchester,  in  Carnarvon,  and  in  Edinburgh,  to  declare  their  entire 


156  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1842. 

With  reference  to  the  first  of  the  two  themes  which  is  here 
suggested,  Cobden  always  felt  keenly  the  wrong  part  taken 
throughout  the  struggle  by  the  clergy  of  the  Establishment.  The 
rector  of  the  church  which  he  was  in  the  habit  of  attending,  Saint 
John's,  in  Deansgate,  appealed  to  him  for  help  towards  an  Asso- 
ciation for  providing  ten  new  churches  in  Manchester.  Cobden 
in  reply  expressed  his  opinion  of  the  project  with  wholesome 
frankness :  — 

"  It  will  be  always  very  gratifying  to  me  to  second  your  chari- 
table efforts  to  relieve  the  distresses  of  our  poor  neighbors ;  and  if 
I  do  not  co-operate  in  the  plan  for  benefiting  the  destitute  popu- 
lation on  a  large  scale  by  erecting  ten  new  churches,  it  is  only 
because,  in  the  words  of  the  appeal,  I  '  differ  about  the  means  to 
be  adopted.'  You,  who  visit  the  abodes  of  poverty,  are  aware 
that  a  great  portion  of  the  working  population  of  Manchester  are 
suffering  from  an  insufficiency  of  wholesome  nourishment.  The 
first  and  most  pressing  claim  of  the  poor  is  for  food :  all  other 
wants  are  secondary  to  this.  It  is  in  vain  to  try  and  elevate  the 
moral  and  religious  character  of  a  people  whose  physical  condition 
is  degraded  by  the  privation  of  the  first  necessaries  of  life ;  and 
hence  we  are  taught  to  pray  for  '  our  daily  bread '  before  spiritual 
graces.  There  is  a  legislative  enactment  which  prevents  the  poor 
of  this  town  from  obtaining  a  sufficiency  of  wholesome  food,  and 
I  am  sure  *the  law  only  requires  to  be  understood  by  our  clergy 
to  receive  their  unanimous  condemnation.  Surely  a  law^  of  this 
kind,  opposed  alike  to  the  laws  of  nature,  the  obvious  dispensa- 
tions of  divine  providence,  and  the  revealed  word  of  God,  must 
be  denounced  by  the  ministers  of  the  Gospel.  So  convinced  am 
I  that  there  is  no  other  mode  of  raising  the  condition  of  the 
working  classes  in  the  scale  of  morality  or  religion,  whilst  they 
are  denied  by  Act  of  Parliament  a  sufficiency  of  food,  that  I  have 
set  apart  as  much  of  my  income  as  I  can  spare  from  other  claims 
for  the  purpose  of  effecting  the  abolition  of  the  Corn  Law  and 
Provision  Law.  Until  this  object  be  attained  I  shall  be  com- 
pelled to  deny  myself  the  satisfaction  of  contributing  to  other 
public  undertakings  of  great  importance  in  themselves,  and  secon- 
dary only  to  the  first  of  all  duties,  —  the  feeding  of  the  hungry.  It 
is  for  this  reason  that  I  am  reluctantly  obliged  to  decline  to  con- 
tribute to  the  fund  for  building  ten  new  churches.  My  course  is, 
I  submit,  in  strict  harmony  with  the  example  afforded  us  by  the 
divine  author  of  Christianity,  who  preached  upon  the  mountain 
and  in  the  desert,  beneath  no  other  roof  than  the  canopy  of 
heaven,  and  who  yet,  we  are  told,  was  careful  to  feed  the  multi- 
abhorrence  of  the  unjust  and  murderous  system  by  which  multitudes  of  honest 
and  industrious  men  are  made  to  suffer  wrongs  more  grievous  than  can  easily  be 
described." 


iET.38.]  SIR   ROBERT   PEEL'S   NEW   POLICY.  157 

tude  that  flocked  around  him.  You  will,  I  am  sure,  excuse  me 
troubling  you  at  such  length  upon  a  subject  which  I  conscien- 
tiously believe  to  be  the  most  important  in  relation  to  the  poor 
of  any  that  can  engage  your  attention."  ^ 


CHAPTER  XL 

SIR  ROBERT   PEEL'S   NEW  POLICY. 

The  new  Corn  Bill  was  the  first  of  three  acts  in  the  great 
drama  which  Peel  now  unfolded  to  Parliament  and  the  nation.  '^ 
Things  looked  as  if  the  country  were  slowly  sinking  into  decay. 
The  revenue,  which  had  been  exhibiting  deficits  for  several  years, 
now  fell  short  of  the  expenditure  for  the  year  current  by  two 
millions  and  a  half.  The  working  classes  all  over  the  land  were 
suffering  severe  and  undeniable  distress.  Population  had  in- 
creased to  an  extent  at  which  it  seemed  no  longer  possible  to  find 
employment  for  them.  To  invite  all  the  world  to  become  our 
customers,  by  opening  our  ports  to  their  products  in  exchange, 
was  the  Manchester  remedy.  It  would  bring  both  work  and  food.  ^ 
The  Prime  Minister  believed  that  the  revenue  could  be  repaired, 
and  the  springs  of  industry  relieved,  without  that  great  change  in 
our  economic  policy.  But  he  knew  that  the  crisis  was  too  deep 
for  half-measures,  and  he  produced  by  far  the  most  momentous 
budget  of  the  century. 

The  Report  of  the  Committee  of  1840  on  Import  Duties  was, 
as  I  have  already  mentioned,  the  starting-point  of  the  revolution 
to  which  Peel  now  proceeded.  It  passed  a  strong  condemnation 
on  the  existing  tariff,  as  presenting  neither  congruity  nor  unity  of 
purpose,  and  conforming  to  no  general  principles.  Eleven  hun-  ^ 
dred  and  fifty  rates  of  duty  were  enumerated  as  chargeable  on  ' 
imported  articles,  and  all  other  articles  paid  duty  as  unenumerated. 
In  some  cases  the  duties  levied  were  simple  and  comprehensiv^e ; 
in  others  they  fell  into  vexatious  and  embarrassing  details.  The 
tariff  often  aimed  at  incompatible  ends.  A  duty  was  imposed 
both  for  revenue  and  protection,  and  then  was  pitched  so  high  for 
the  sake  of  protection  as  to  produce  little  or  nothing  to  revenue.  _ 
A  great  variety  of  particular  interests  were  protected,  to  the  detri- 
ment of  the  public  income,  as  well  as  of  commercial  intercourse 
with  other  countries.  The  same  preference  was  extended  by 
means  of  discriminating  duties  to  the  produce  of  the  colonies; 

1  February,  1841. 


158         .  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1842/ 

great  advantages  were  given  to  the  colonial  interests  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  consumers  in  the  mother  country. 

It  was  pointed  out  that  the  effect  of  prohibitory  duties  was  to 
impose  on  the  consumer  an  indirect  tax  often  equal  to  the  whole 
difference  of  price  between  the  British  article  and  the  foreign 
article  which  the  duty  kept  out.  On  articles  of  food  alone  the 
amount  taken  in  this  way  from  the  consumer  exceeded  the  amount 
of  all  the  other  taxes  levied  by  the  Government.  The  sacrifices 
of  the  community  did  not  end  here,  but  were  accompanied  by 
injurious  effects  upon  wages  and  capital.  The  duties  diminished 
greatly  the  productive  powers  of  the  country ;  and  they  limited 
our  trade.  The  action  of  duties  which  were  not  prohibitory,  but 
only  protective,  was  of  a  similar  kind.  They  imposed  upon  the 
consumer  a  tax  equal  to  the  amount  of  the  duty  levied  on  the 
foreign  article ;  but  it  was  a  tax  which  went  not  to  the  public 
treasury,  but  to  the  protected  manufacturer. 

Evidence  was  taken  to  show  that  the  protective  system  was  not 
on  the  whole  beneficial  to  the  protected  manufactures  themselves. 
The  amount  of  duties  levied  on  the  plea  of  protection  to  British 
manufactures  did  not  exceed  half  a  million  sterling.  Some  even 
of  the  manufacturers  supposed  to  be  most  interested  in  retaining 
the  duties,  were  quite  willing  that  they  should  be  abolished. 

With  reference  to  the  influence  of  the  protective  system  on 
wages,  and  on  the  condition  of  the  laborer,  the  Eeport  was  equally 
decided.  As  the  pressure  of  foreign  competition  was  heaviest  on 
those  articles  in  the  production  of  which  the  rate  of  wages  was 
lowest,  so  it  was  obvious  in  a  country  exporting  so  largely  as  Eng- 
land, that  other  advantages  might  more  than  compensate  for  an 
apparent  advantage  in  the  money  price  of  labor.  The  countries 
in  which  the  rate  of  wages  is  lowest,  are  not  always  those  which 
manufacture  most  successfully.  The  Committee  was  persuaded 
that  the  best  service  that  could  be  rendered  to  the  industrious 
classes  of  the  community,  would  be  to  extend  the  field  of  labor 
by  an  extension  of  our  commerce. 

The  conclusion  was  a  strong  conviction,  in  the  minds  of  the 
Committee,  of  the  necessity  of  an  immediate  change  in  the  import 
duties  of  the  kingdom.  By  imposts  on  a  small  number  of  those 
articles  which  were  then  most  productive^ — the  amount  of  each 
impost  being  carefully  considered  with  a  view  to  the  greatest  con- 
sumption of  the  article,  and  therefore  the  highest  receipts  at  the 
dustoms  —  the  revenue  would  not  only  suffer  no  loss,  but  would 
be  considerably  augmented.^ 

1  Seventeen  articles  produced  94|  per  cent  of  the  total  revenue,  and  these  with 
twent)'-nine  other  articles,  or  forty-six  articles  in  all,  produced  98|  per  cent. 

2  Much  of  the  evidence  which  led  to  this  Report  is,  in  the  present  recrudescence 
of  bad  opinions,  as  well  worth  reading  to-day  as  it  was  forty  years  ago  —  especially 


J:t.38.]  sir  ROBERT  PEEL'S  NEW  POLICY.  159 

This  Report  was  the  charter  of  Free  Trade.  The  Whig  Govern- 
ment, as  we  have  seen,  had  taken  from  it  in  a  timid  and  blunder- 
ing way  a  weapon  or  two,  with  which  they  hoped  that  they  might 
be  able  to  defend  their  places.  Their  successor  grasped  its  prin- 
ciples with  the  hand  of  a  master.  "My  own  conviction,"  said 
Cobden  many  years  afterwards,  "  is  that  Peel  was  always  a  Free 
Trader  in  theory ;  in  fact,  on  all  politico-economical  questions,  he 
was  always  as  sound  in  the  abstract  as  Adam  Smith  or  Bentham. 
For  he  was  peculiarly  a  politico-economical,  and  not  a  Protec- 
tionist, intellect.  But  he  never  believed  that  absolute  Free  ^ 
Trade  came  within  the  category  of  practical  House  of  Commons 
measures.  It  was  a  question  of  numbers  with  him ;  and  as  he 
was  yoked  with  a  majority  of  inferior  animals,  he  was  obliged  to 
go  their  pace,  and  not  his  own."  ^ 

This  is  true  of  Sir  Eobert  Peel's  mind  throughout  from  1843 
to  1846.  But  it  seems  only  to  be  partially  true  of  the  moment 
when  he  brought  in  the  great  budget  of  1842.  Notwithstanding 
its  fatal  omission  of  the  duties  on  corn,  it  was  a  Free  Trade 
budget.  Corn  was  excluded  partly  from  the  leaders'  fear  of  the 
"inferior  animals"  whom  it  was  his  honorable  but  unhappy 
mission  to  drive,  but  partly  also  by  an  honest  doubt  in  Peel's 
own  mind,  whether  it  was  safe  to  depend  on  foreign  countries 
for  our  supplies.  The  doubt  was  strong  enough  to  warrant 
him,  from  his  own  point  of  view,  in  trying  an  experiment  be- 
fore meddling  with  corn ;  and  a  magnificent  experiment  it  was. 
The  financial  plan  of  1842  was  the  beginning  of  all  the  great 
things  that  have  been  done  since.  Its  cardinal  point  was  the 
imposition  of  a  direct  tax,  in  order  to  relax  the  commercial  tariff. 
Ultimately  the  effect  of  diminishing  duties  was  to  increase  reve- 
nue, but  the  first  effect  was  a  fall  in  revenue.  It  was  expedient  or 
indispensable  for  the  revival  of  trade  to  lower  or  remit  duties,  and 
to  purge  the  tariff.  To  bridge  over  the  interval  before  increased 
trade  and  consumption  made  up  for  the  loss  thus  incurred,  the 
Government  proposed  to  put  on  the  income  tax  at  the  rate  of  seven- 
pence  in  the  pound.  They  expected  that  the  duration  of  the  impost 
would  probably  be  about  five  years.  At  the  end  of  that  time  the 
loss  caused  by  remissions  would,  they  hoped,  have  been  recovered. 

The  new  tariff  was  not  laid  before  Parliament  for  some  weeks.^ 

the  evidence  of  Mr.  J.  Deacon  Hume,  who  is  not  to  be  confused,  by  the  way,  with 
Joseph  Hume,  the  chairman  of  the  Committee.  Cobden  said  that  (f  the  Committee 
had  done  nothing  else  but  elicit  this  evidence,  "it  would  have  been  sufficient  to 
produce  a  commercial  revolution  all  over  the  world."  Mr.  Hume's  answers  were 
largely  circulated  as  one  of  the  League  tracts.  This  important  blue-book,  Import 
Duties,  No.  601,  was  ordered  to  be  printed,  Aug.  6,  1840. 

1  To  J.  Parkes,  May  26,  1856. 

2  The  speech  jiroposing  the  Income  Tax  was  March  11.     It  was  May  5  when  Sir 
Robert  Peel  moved  to  go  into  Committee  on  the  Tariff. 


160  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1842. 

The  labor  of  preparation  was  enormous.  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  was 
then  at  the  Board  of  Trade,  and  on  whom  much  of  the  labor  fell, 
said  many  years  afterwards  that  he  had  been  concerned  in  four 
revisions  of  the  Tariff,  namely,  in  1842,  in  1845,- in  1854,  and  in 
1860 ;  and  he  told  Cobden  that  the  first  cost  six  times  as  much 
trouble  as  all  the  others  put  together.  There  was  an  abatement  of 
duty  on  seven  hundred  and  fifty  articles.  The  object,  as  set  forth 
by  the  Minister  himself,  speaking  generally,  was  to  reduce  the 
duties  on  raw  materials,  which  constituted  the  elements  of  manu- 
factures, to  an  almost  nominal  amount ;  to  reduce  .the  duties  on 
half-manufactured  articles,  which  entered  almost  as  much  as  raw 
material  into  domestic  manufactures,  to  a  nominal  amount.  In 
articles  completely  manufactured,  their  object  had  been  to  remove 
prohibitions  and  reduce  prohibitory  duties,  so  as  to  enable  the  for- 
eign producer  to  compete  fairly  with  the  domestic  manufacturer. 
The  general  principle  Sir  Eobert  Peel  went  upon,  was  to  make 
V  >  a  considerable  reduction  in  the  cost  of  living.  It  is  true  that  the 
^  duty  on  the  importation  of  fresh  and  salted  meat  was  lowered. 
It  is  true,  too,  that  he  could  point  to  the  new  Corn  Bill  as  having 
reduced  the  duty  on  wheat  by  more  than  a  half.  While  he  spoke, 
it  was  nine  shillings  under  the  new  law,  and  twenty-three  under 
the  old  one.  But  the  sugar  duties  were  untouched.  It  seemed 
a  fatal,  absurd,  miserable  flaw  in  the  new  scheme  to  talk  of  the 
lain  object  being  to  lessen  the  charge  of  living,  and  then  to  leave 
bread  and  sugar,  two  great  articles  of  universal  consumption,  bur- 
dened with  heavy  protective  taxation.  Many  a  League  meeting 
in  the  next  three  years  rang  with  fierce  laughter  at  the  expense 
of  a  Minister  who  talked  of  relieving  the  consumer,  when  he  had 
taken  the  tax  off  dried  fruits,  cosmetics,  satins,  caviare,  and  left  it 
.  upon  the  loaf  of  bread. 

The  Tories  followed  reluctantly.  The  more  acute  among  the 
Protectionists  felt  that  the  colonial  interest  would  speedily  be 
forced  to  surrender  its  advantage  over  the  sugar  of  Cuba  and 
Brazil ;  and  one  member  warned  sympathetic  hearers  that,  when 
the  Tariff  was  passed,  the  next  step  to  be  expected  was  the  repeal 
of  the  Corn  Laws.  The  Minister  found  one  remarkable  champion 
on  his  own  side,  whose  genius  he  failed  to  recognize.  Mr.  Disraeli 
laughed  at  the  Whigs  for  pretending  to  be  the  originators  of  Free 
Trade.  It  was  Mr.  Pitt,  he  said,  who  first  promulgated  its  doc- 
trines ;  and  it  was  Fox,  Burke,  and  Sheridan  who  then  denounced 
the  new  commercial  principles.  The  principles  of  Free  Trade 
were  developed,  and  not  by  Whigs,  fifty  years  before;  and  the 
conduct  now  pursued  by  Sir  Eobert  Peel  was  in  exact  accordance 
and  consistency  with  the  principles  for  the  first  time  promul- 
gated by  Mr.  Pitt.  So  far  as  it  went,  Mr.  Disraeli's  contention 
was  perfectly  correct. 


iET.  38.]  SIR   ROBERT   PEEL'S   NEW   POLICY.  161 

If  the  Protectionists  were  puzzled  as  well  as  annoyed  by  the 
new  policy,  so  were  the  Free  Traders.  The  following  extracts 
from  letters  to  his  brother  convey  one  or  two  of  Cobden's  earlier 
impressions  about  Peel.  Of  the  measure  he  always  thought  the 
same,  and  the  worst.  By  the  end  of  the  session  Cobden  had 
clearly  discerned  whither  Peel's  mind  was  turning.  We  who 
live  a  generation  after  the  battle  was  won,  may  feel  for  a  moment 
disappointed  that  Cobden  did  not  at  once  judge  the  Minister's 
boldness  in  imposing  the  income  tax  as  a  means  of  reforming  the 
tariff,  in  a  more  appreciative  spirit  It  is  just,  however,  to  re- 
member that  in  his  letters  we  seize  the  first  quick  impressions  of 
the  hour ;  that  these  first  impressions  were  naturally  those  of  cha- 
grin in  one  who  saw  that  the  new  scheme,  however  good  in  its  gen- 
eral bearings,  omitted  the  one  particular  change  that  was  needful. 
We  must  not  expect  from  an  energetic  and  clear-sighted  actor, 
committed  to  an  urgent  practical  cause,  the  dispassionateness  of 
a  historian  whose  privilege  it  is  to  be  wise  after  the  event. 

"What  say  the  wise  men  to  Sir  Eobert's  income  tax?  In 
other  words,  how  do  our  mill-owners  and  shopkeepers  like  to  be 
made  to  pay  1,200,000/.  a  year  out  of  their  profits,  to  insure  the 
continuance  of  the  corn  and  sugar-monopolies  ?  I  should  think 
that  the  proposal  to  place  profits  upon  a  par  with  rent  before  the 
tax  collector  will  not  be  vastly  popular,  unless  the  law  can  con- 
trive to  keep  up  the  former  as  it  does  the  latter.  The  only  im- 
portant change  after  all,  announced  last  night,  was  timber 

Peel  delivered  his  statement  in  a  clear  and  clever  way,  never 
faltering  nor  missing  a  word  in  nearly  a  four  hours'  speech,  This 
has  gone  far  to  convince  our  noodles  on  the  Whig  side  that  there 
is  a  great  deal  of  good  in  his  budget ;  and  I  find  even  our  friend 

J is  inclined  to  praise  the  budget.     But  I  fully  expect  that 

it  will  do  much  to  render  Peel  vastly  unpopular  with  the  upper 
portion  of  the  middle  class,  who  will  see  no  compensation  in  the 
tariff  for  a  tax  upon  their  incomes  and  profits.  If  this  be  the  re- 
sult of  the  measure,  it  will  do  good  to  the  Corn  Law  cause,  by 
bringing  the  discontented  to  our  ranks.  Let  me  know  what  your 
!  wiseacres  say  about  it."  ^ 

'  "  Both  the  corn  and  income  tax  will  be  thrown  over  Easter  I 
expect.  Peel  is  very  anxious  to  force  on  both  measures,  which  I 
am  not  surprised  at,  seeing  how  he  is  badgered  both  in  the  House 
and  out  of  doors.  He  gets  at  times  very  irritable,  as  you  will 
have  seen.  It  is  a  hard  task  to  govern  for  a  class,  under  the  pre- 
tence of  governing  for  the  people.  If  he  should  be  killed  in  the 
vain  attempt  to  serve  two  such  opposite  masters,  it  is  to  be  hoped 

1  To  F.  Cobden,  March  12,  1842. 
11 


J 


162  LIFE  OF  COBDEK  [1842. 

he  will  be  the  last  man  foolish  enough  to  make  the  attempt.  He 
is  certainly  looking  very  fagged  and  jaded.  The  income  tax  will 
do  more  than  the  Corn  Law  to  destroy  the  Tories.  The  class  of 
voters  in  the  towns  upon  which  they  rely,  are  especially  touched  by 
his  schemes.  The  genteel  shopkeepers  and  professional  men  who 
depend  upon  appearances,  and  live  by  a  false  external,  will  never 
forgive  him  for  exposing  their  tinsel.  You  will  not  hear  of  any 
public  demonstration  against  the  tax,  but  a  much  more  effective 
resistance  is  being  offered  by  the  private  remonstrance  of  Tory 
voters.  There  is  very  little  feeling  in  the  manufacturing  districts 
compared  with  that  of  the  southern  boroughs.  Peel  is  also  under- 
mining his  strength  in  the  counties  by  displeasing  everybody,  and 
putting  everything  in  disorder  without  settling  anything.  The 
worst  danger  is  of  the  Whigs  coming  in  again  too  soon.  The 
hacks  would  be  up  on  their  hind  legs,  and  at  their  old  prancing 
tricks  again,  immediately  they  smelt  the  Treasury  crib."  ^ 

"  The  truth  is,  your  accounts  make  me  feel  very  uneasy  at  my 
position.  No  earthly  good  can  I  do  here.  The  thing  must  be 
allowed  to  work  itself  into  some  new  shape  —  time  only  can  tell 
what.  We  are  noiuhere  on  the  opposition  side  at  present.  Peel 
must  head  a  milieu  party  soon.  If  the  old  Duke  were  dead,  he 
would  quarrel  with  the  ultra-Tories  in  a  month.  He  is  no  more 
with  them  in  heart  than  you  or  I,  and  I  suspect  there  is  now  an 
accumulation  of  grudges  between  him  and  the  more  violent  of  his 
party,  that  can  hardly  be  suppressed."  ^ 

"  Peel  is  a  Free-tnader,  and  so  are  Eipon  and  Gladstone.  The 
last  was  put  in  by  the  Puseyites,  who  thought  they  had  insinuated 
the  wedge,  but  they  now  complain  that  he  has  been  quite  ab- 
sorbed by  Peel,  which  is  the  fact.  Gladstone  makes  a  very  clever 
aide-de-camp  to  Peel,  but  is  nothing  without  him.  The  Govern- 
ment are  at  their  wits'  end  about  the  state  of  the  country.  The 
Devonshire  House  Whigs  are  beginning  to  talk  of  the  necessity  of 
supporting  the  Government  in  case  of  any  serious  troubles,  which 
means  a  virtual  coalition  ;  a  point  they  are  evidently  being  driven 
to  by  the  force  of  events.  Peel  will  throw  overboard  the  bigots 
of  his  party,  if  he  have  the  chance.  But  the  real  difficulty  is  the 
present  state  of  the  country.  The  accounts  from  every  part  are 
equally  bad,  and  Chadwick  says  the  poor-rates  in  the  agricultural 
districts  are  rising  rapidly.  A  great  deal  of  land  has  been  offered 
for  sale  during  the  last  three  months,  and  everything  seems  work- 
ing beautifully  for  a  cure  in  the  only  possible  way,  viz.,  distress, 
suffering,  and  want  of  money.     I  am  most  anxious  to  get  away 

1  To  F.  Cobden,  March  22,  1842.  2  To  F.  Cobden,  April  11,  1842. 


/ 


^T.  38.]        SIR  ROBERT  PEEL'S  NEW  POLICY.  163 

and  come  to  Manchester ;  I  know  the  necessity  of  my  presence, 
and  shall  let  nothing  but  the  corn  question  keep  me."  ^ 

"  The  last  fortnight  has  done  more  to  advance  our  cause  than 
the  last  six  or  twelve  months.  The  Peel  party  are  fairly  beaten 
in  argument,  and  for  the  first  time  they  are  willing  to  listen  to  us 
as  if  they  were  anxious  to  learn  excuses  for  their  inevitable  con- 
version. If  I  were  disposed  to  be  vain  of  my  talk,  I  have  had 
good  reason,  for  both  sides  speak  in  praise  of  my  two  last  efforts. 
The  Reform  and  Carlton  Clubs  are  both  agreed  as  to  my  having  » 
pleaded  the  cause  successfully.  The  real  secret,  however,  is  the  ' 
irresistible  pressure  of  the  times,  and  the  consciousness  that  the 
party  in  power  can  only  exist  by  restoring  the  country  to  some- 
thing like  prosperity.  If  nothing  happens  to  revive  trade,  the 
Corn  Law  goes  to  a  certainty  before  spring."  ^  I 

"  Peel  and  his  squad  will  be  right  glad  to  get  rid  of  the  House, 
and  I  suspect  it  will  not  be  his  fault  if  he  does  not  get  a  measure 
of  Corn  Law  repeal  ready  before  next  session,  to  stop  the  mouths 
of  the  League  men.  He  has  been  excessively  worried  by  our 
clique  in  the  House,  and  I  have  reason  to  flatter  myself  with  the 
notion  that  I  have  been  a  frequent  thorn  in  his  side.  If  distress 
should  continue  to  favor  us,  we  shall  get  something  substantial  in  [, 
another  twelve  months,  and  I  suspect  we  may  bargain  for  the 
continuance  of  bad  trade  for  that  length  of  time  at  least."  ^    , 

Something  must  be  said  of  the  two  speeches  of  which  Cobden  / 
speaks  so  lightly  in  one  of  these  extracts.  It  was  July  before  he 
made  any  prominent  attack  on  the  financial  scheme.  In  March, 
when  Peel  had  wished  to  press  the  Income  Tax  Bill  forwards, 
Cobden  had  been  one  of  a  small  group  who  persisted  in  obstruct-  "^ 
ive  motions  for  adjournment,  until  Peel  was  at  length  forced  to 
give  way.  He  had  also  made  remarks  from  time  to  time  in  Com- 
mittee. But  the  session  was  far  advanced  before  he  found  a. 
proper  occasion  for  putting  forward  all  the  strength  of  his  case. 

On  July  1  a  great  debate  was  opened  by  Mr.  Wallace  of  Gree-  ^y 
nock,  upon  the  distress  of  the  country.  Mr.  Disraeli  pointed  out, 
with  much  force  and  ingenuity,  that  the  languid  trade  from 
which  they  were  suffering  would  receive  a  far  more  powerful 
stimulus  than  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  could  give,  if  Lord 
Palmerston  had  not,  by  a  mischievous  political  treaty,  put  an  end 
to  a  treaty  of  commerce  with  France,  which  would  have  opened 
new  markets  for  all  the  most  heavily  stricken  industries  of  Eng- 
land.    Joseph  Hume  urged  that  the  Government  should  either 

1  To  F.  Cobden,  June  22,  1842.  »  To  F,  Cobden,  July  14,  1842. 

8  To  F.  Cobden,  July  20,  1842. 


164  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1842. 

agree  to  an  inquiry,  or  else  adopt  the  remedy  of  a  repeal  of  the 
Corn  Laws.  Lord  John  Russell  lamented  the  postponement  of 
remedies,  but  would  leave  to  the  Government  the  responsibility 
of  choosino:  their  own  time.  The  Prime  Minister  followed  in  a 
speech  in  which  he  confined  himself  to  very  narrow  ground.  It 
was  rather  a  defence  of  his  financial  policy,  than  a  serious  recog- 
nition of  the  state  of  the  country. 

This  provoked  Cobden  to  make  his  first  great  speech  in  the 
House  (July  8).  Mr,  Eoebuck,  who  spoke  the  same  evening, 
described  it  as  "  a  speech  fraught  with  more  melancholy  instruc- 
tion than  it  had  ever  been  his  lot  to  hear.  A  speech,  in  the  inci- 
dents which  it  unfolded,  more  deeply  interesting  to  the  people  of 
this  country  he  had  never  heard  in  his  life ;  and  these  incidents 
were  set  forth  with  great  ability  and  great  simplicity."  As  a 
debating  reply  to  the  Prime  Minister,  it  was  of  consummate 
force  and  vivacity.  The  facts  which  Cobden  adduced  supported 
his  vigorous  charge  that  Peel  viewed  the  matter  too  narrowly, 
and  that  circumstances  were  more  urgent  than  he  had  chosen  to 
admit.  It  was  exactly  one  of  those  speeches  which  the  House  of 
Commons  naturally  delights  in.  It  contained  not  a  single  waste 
sentence.  Every  one  of  Peel's  arguments  was  met  by  detail 
and  circumstance,  -and  yet  detail  and  circumstance  the  most  mi- 
nute were  kept  alive  by  a  stream  of  eager  and  on-pressing  con- 
viction. Peel  had  compared  the  consumption  of  cotton  in  two 
half-years  ;  Cobden  showed  that  for  purposes  of  comparison  they 
were  the  wrong  half-years.  Peel  had  talked  of  improved  machin- 
ery for  a  time  turning  people  out  of  employment ;  Cobden  proved 
with  chapter  and  verse  how  gradual  the  improvement  in  the 
power-looms  had  been,  and  pointed  out  that  Manchester,  Bolton, 
Stockport,  and  other  towns  in  the  north,  were  really  the  creation 
of  labor-saving  machines.  Peel  had  spoken  as  if  it  were  merely  a 
cotton  question  and  a  Manchester  question :  Cobden,  out  of  the 
fulness  of  his  knowledge,  showed  that  the  stocking-frames  of 
Nottingham  were  as  idle  as  the  looms  of  Stockport,  that  the 
glass-cutters  of  Stourbridge  and  the  glovers  of  Yeovil  were  under- 
going the  same  privation  as  the  potters  of  Stoke  and  the  miners 
of  Staffordshire,  where  five-and-twenty  thousand  were  destitute 
of  employment.  He  knew  of  a  place  where  a  hundred  wedding- 
rings  had  been  pawned  in  a  single  week  to  provide  bread ;  and  of 
another  place  where  men  and  women  subsisted  on  boiled  nettles, 
and  dug  up  the  decayed  carcass  of  a  cow  rather  than  perish  of 
hunger.     "  I  say  you  are  drifting  to   confusion,"   he  exclaimed, 

"without  rudder   and  without  compass Those  who  are 

so  fond  of  laughing  at  political  economy  forget  that  they  have  a 
political  economy  of  their  own  :  and  what  is  it  ?  That  they  will 
monopolize  to  themselves  the  fruit  of  the  industry  of  the  great 


^T.38.]  SIR  ROBERT   PEEL'S   NEW   fOLICY.  165 

body  of  the  community  —  that  they  allow  the  productions  of  the 
spindle  and  the  loom  to  go  abroad  to  furnish  them  with  luxuries 
from  the  farthest  corners  of  the  world,  but  refuse  to  permit  to  be 
brought  back  in  exchange  what  would  minister  to  the  wants  and 
comforts  of  the  lower  orders.  What  would  the  consequence  be  ? 
We  are  sowing  the  seeds  broadcast  for  a  plentiful  harvest  of 
workmen  in  the  western  world.  Thousands  of  workmen  are  delv- 
ing in  the  mines  of  the  western  continent;  where  coals  can  be 
raised  for  a  shilling  a  ton.  We  are  sending  there  the  laborers 
from  our  cotton  manufactories,  from  our  woollen,  and  from  our 
silk.  They  are  not  going  by  dozens  or  by  scores  to  teach  the 
people  of  other  countries  the  work  they  have  learnt  —  they  are 
going  in  hundreds  and  thousands  to  those  states  to  open  works 
against  our  own  machines,  and  to  bring  this  country  to  a  worse 
state  than  it  is  now  in.  There  is  nothing  to  atone  for  a  system 
which  leads  to  this ;  and  if  I  were  to  seek  for  a  parallel,  it  would 
be  only  in  the  Eevocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  by  Louis  XIV., 
or  the  decree  of  Alva  in  Belgium,  where  the  best  men  were  ban- 
ished from  their  country." 

Cobden  gave  additional  strength  to  his  appeal  by  showing  that 
its  eagerness  was  not  due  to  a  merely  official  partisanship.  He 
saw  no  reason,  he  declared,  why  they  should  not  take  good  meas- 
ures from  Sir  Eobert  Peel,  or  why  they  should  prefer  those  of 
Lord  John  Eussell.  "  The  noble  Lord  is  called  the  leader  on  this 
side  of  the  House,  and  I  confess  that  when  I  first  came  into  the 
House  I  was  inclined  to  look  upon  him  as  a  leader ;  but  from 
what  I  have  seen,  I  believe  the  Eight  Hon.  Baronet  to  be  as  lib- 
eral as  the  noble  Lord.  If  the  noble  Lord  is  my  leader,  I  can 
only  say  that  I  believe  that  in  four  out  of  five  divisions  I  have 
voted  against  him.  He  must  be  an  odd  kind  of  leader  who  thus 
votes  against  those  he  leads.  I  will  take  measures  of  relief 
from  the  Eight  Hon.  Baronet  as  well  as  from  the  noble  Lord,  but 

upon  some  measure  of  relief  I  will  insist I  give  the 

Prime  Minister  credit  for  the  difficulties  of  his  situation;  but 
this  question  must  be  met,  and  met  fully ;  it  must  not  be  quib- 
bled away ;  it  must  not  be  looked  upon  as  a  Manchester  question ; 
the  whole  condition  of  the  country  must  be  looked  at  and  faced, 
and  it  must  be  done  before  we  separate  this  session." 

Three  nights  later  (July  11),  Sir  Eobert  Peel  took  occasion  to 
deal  with  some  of  Cobden's  economic  propositions,  especially  an 
assertion  that  in  prosperous  times  improvements  in  machinery  do 
not  tend  to  throw  laborers  out  of  employment.  At  the  close  of 
his  speech  the  Minister  revealed  the  tentative  spirit  in  which  his 
great  measures  had  been  framed,  and  the  half-open  mind  in  which  ^ 
he  was  beginning  to  stand  towards  the  Corn  Law.  If  these  meas-  ' 
ures  should  not  prove  adequate  to  meet  the  distress  of  the  coun- 


166  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  ^  [1842. 

try,  in  that  case,  he  said,  "  I  shall  be  the  first  to  admit  that  no 
adherence  to  former  opinions  ought  to  prevent  their  full  and 
careful  revision." 

Cobden,  in  the  couj-se  of  a  vigorous  reply,  pointed  to  a  historic 
parallel  which  truly  described  the  political  situation.  He  warned 
the  aristocracy  and  the  landowners  never  to  expect  to  find  another 
Prime  Minister  who  would  take  office  to  uphold  their  monopoly. 
"  They  had  killed  Canning  by  thwarting  him,  and  they  would  visit 
the  same  fate  on  their  present  leader,  if  he  persevered  in  the  same 
attempt  to  govern  for  the  aristocracy,  while  professing  to  govern 
for  the  people."  At  this  there  were  loud  groans  from  some  parts 
of  the  House.  "  Yes,"  repeated  Cobden,  undaunted,  "  they  had 
killed  Canning  by  forcing  him  to  try  and  reconcile  their  interests 
with  those  of  the  people,  and  no  human  power  could  enable  the 
Eight  Hon.  Baronet  to  survive  the  same  ordeal." 


CHAPTEE  XII. 

EENEWED   ACTIVITY   OF  THE    LEAGUE  —  COBDEN  AND   SIR 
ROBERT   PEEL  —  RURAL   CAMPAIGN. 

At  the  close  of  the  session,  Cobden  hastened  back  to  Manches- 
ter, where  his  business,  as  he  too  well  knew,  urgently  required  his 
presence.  As  we  have  seen,  his  brother's  letters  had  begun  to 
make  him  seriously  uneasy  as  to  his  position.  Affairs  were  already 
beginning  to  fall  into  disorder  at  Chorley  and  in  Manchester,  and 
in  telling  the  story  of  Cobden's  public  activity,  we  have  to  remem- 
ber that  almost  from  the  moment  of  entering  Parliament  he  began 
to  be  harassed  by  private  anxieties  of  a  kind  which  depress  and 
unnerve  most  men  more  fatally  than  any  other.  Cobden's  buoy- 
ant enthusiasm  for  his  cause  carried  him  forward ;  it  drove  these 
haunting  cares  into  the  background,  and  his  real  life  was  not  in 
his  business,  but  in  the  affairs  of  the  nation. 

In  September  he  made  an  important  speech  to  the  Council  of 
the  League,  at  Manchester.  It  explains  their  relations  to  political 
parties,  and  to  social  classes.  They  had  been  lately  charged,  he 
said,  with  having  been  in  collision  with  the  Chartist  party.  But 
those  who  made  this  charge  had  themselves  been  working  for  the 
last  three  years  to  excite  the  Chartist  party  against  the  League, 
and  that,  too,  by  means  that  were  not  over-creditable.  These 
intriguers  had  succeeded  in  deluding  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
working  classes  upon  the  subject  of  the  Corn  Laws.     "  And  I  have 


tEt.  38.]  RENEWED    ACTIVITY   OF  THE   LEAGUE.  167 

no  objection  in  admitting  here,"  Cobden  went  on  to  say,  "as  I 
have  admitted  frankly  before,  that  these  artifices  and  manoeuvres 
have,  to  a  considerable  extent,  compelled  us  to  make  our  agitation 
a  middle-class  agitation.  I  do  not  deny  that  the  working  classes 
generally  have  attended  our  lectures  and  signed  our  jjetitions  ;  but 
I  will  admit,  that  so  far  as  the  fervor  and  efficiency  of  our  agita- 
tion has  gone,  it  has  eminently  been  a  middle-class  agitation. 
We  have  carried  it  on  by  those  means  by  which  the  middle  class 
usually  carries  on  its  movements.  We  have  had  our  meetings  of 
dissenting  ministers;  we  have  obtained  the  co-operation  of  the 
ladies ;  we  have  resorted  to  tea-parties,  and  taken  those  pacific 
means  for  carrying  out  our  views  which  mark  us  rather  as  a 
middle-class  set  of  agitators.  .  .  .  We  are  no  political  body ;  we 
have  refused  to  be  bought  by  the  Tories ;  we  have  kept  aloof 
from  the  Whigs ;  and  we  will  not  join  partnership  with  either 
Radicals  or  Chartists,  but  we  hold  out  our  hand  ready  to  give  it  to 
all  who  are  willing  to  advocate  the  total  and  immediate  repeal  of 
the  corn  and  provision  laws." 

In  another  speech,  he  said  the  great  mass  of  the  people  stuck 
to  the  bread-tax  because  it  was  the  law.  "  He  did  not  charge  the 
great  body  of  the  working  classes  with  taking  part  against  the 
repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws,  but  he  charged  the  great  body  of  the 
intelligent  mechanics  with  standing  aloof,  and  allowing  a  parcel 
of  lads,  with  hired  knaves  for  leaders,  to  interrupt  their  meetings." 
As  time  went  on,  the  share  of  the  working  class  in  the  movement 
became  more  satisfactory.  Meanwhile,  it  is  important  to  notice 
that  they  held  aloof,  or  else  opposed  it  as  iuterfering  with  those 
claims  of  their  own  to  political  power,  which  the  Reform  Act  had 
so  unexpectedly  balked. 

Recovering  themselves  from  the  disappointment  and  confusion 
of  the-  spring,  the  agitators  applied  themselves  with  invigorated 
resolution  to  their  work. 

They  had  been  spending  a  hundred  pounds  a  week.  They 
ought  now,  said  Cobden,  to  spend  a  thousand.  Up  to  this  time 
the  Council  of  the  League  had  had  twenty-live  thousand  pounds 
through  their  hands,  of  which  by  far  the  larger  portion  had  been 
raised  in  Manchester  and  the  neighboring  district.  About  three 
times  that  sum  had  been  raised  and  expended  by  local  associations 
elsewhere.  In  all,  therefore,  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  had 
gone,  and  the  Corn  Laws  seemed  more  immovable  than  ever.  J 
With  admirable  energy,  the  Council  now  made  up  their  minds  at 
once  to  raise  a  new  fund  of  fifty  thousand  pounds,  and,  notwith- 
standing the  terrible  condition  of  the  cotton  trade,  the  amount  was 
collected  in  a  very  short  time.  Men  contributed  freely  because 
they  knew  that  the  rescue  of  their  capital  depended  on  the  opening 
of  markets  from  which  the  protection  on  corn  excluded  them. 


168  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1842- 

"  You  will  have  observed,"  Cobden  wrote  to  Mr.  Edward  Baiiies, 
"  that  the  Council  of  the  League  are  determined  upon  a  renewed 
agitation  upon  a  great  scale,  provided  they  can  get  a  commensu- 
rate pecuniary  help  from  the  country,  and  my  object  in  troubling 
you  is  to  beg  that  you  will  endeavor  to  rouse  the  men  of  the  West 
Eiding  to  another  effort. 

"  The  scheme  which  we  especially  aim  at  carrying  out  is  this  : 
— To  make  an  attack  upon  every  registered  elector  of  the  king- 
dom, county,  and  borough,  by  sending  to  each  a  packet  of  publica- 
tions embracing  the  whole  argument  as  it  affects  both  the  agricul- 
tural and  trading  view  of  the  question.  We  are  procuring  the 
copies  of  the  registers  for  the  purpose.  But  the  plan  involves  an 
expense  of  20,000/.  Add  to  this  our  increased  expenditure  in 
lectures,  etc.,  and  the  contemplated  cost  of  the  spring  deputations 
in  London,  and  we  shall  require  50,000/.  to  do  justice  to  the  cause 
before  next  June.  And  we  have  a  Spartan  band  of  men  in  Man- 
chester who  are  setting  to  work  in  the  full  confidence  that  they 
will  raise  the  money.  The  best  way  to  levy  contributions  on  the 
public  for  a  common  object  is  to  set  up  a  claim,  and  therefore 
Manchester  men  must  not  in  public  declare  the  country  in  their 
debt.  But  between  ourselves  this  is  the  case  to  a  large  extent. 
The  agitation,  though  a  national  one,  and  for  national  objects,  has 
been  sustained  by  the  pockets  of  the  people  here  to  the  extent  of 
10  to  1  against  the  whole  kingdom ! 

"  A  vast  proportion  of  our  expenditure  has  been  of  a  kind  to 
bring  no  eclat,  such  as  the  wide  distribution  of  tracts  in  the  purely 
agricultural  districts,  and  the  subsidizing  of  literary  talent  which 
does  not  appear  in  connection  with  the  League.  If  I  had  the  op- 
portunity of  a  little  gossip  with  you,  I  could  give  you  proof  of 
much  efficient  agitation  for  which  the  League  does  not  get  credit 
publicly.  There  is  danger,  however,  in  the  growing  adversity  of 
this  district,  that  we  may  pump  our  springs  dry,  and  it  is  more 
and  more  necessary  to  widen  the  circle  of  our  contributors.  We 
confidently  rely  on  your  influential  co-operation. 

"  Recollect  that  our  primary  object  is  to  work  the  printing-press, 

not  upon  productions  of  our  own,  but  producing  the  essence  of 

authoritative  writers,  such  as  Deacon   Hume,  Lord  Fitzwilliam, 

etc.,  and  scattering  them  broadcast  over  the  land.     Towards  such 

an  object  no  Free-trader  can  scruple  to  commit  himself.     And  in 

\    no  other  human  war  that  I  am  acquainted  with,  can  we  accomplish 

\    our  end  by  moral  and  peaceable  means.     There  is  no  use  in  blink- 

\  ing  the  real  difficulties  of  our  task,  which  is  the   education  of 

I  twenty-seven  millions  of  people,  an  object  not  to  be  accomplished 

except  by  the  cordial  assistance  of  the  enlightened  and  patriotic  in 

I  all  parts  of  the  kingdom."  ^ 


1  To  Edward  Baines,  Oct.  25,  1842. 


^T.38.1  RENEWED   ACTIVITY   OF  THE   LEAGUE.  169 

The  staff  of  lecturers  was  again  despatched  on  its  missionary 
errand.  To  each  elector  in  the  kingdom  was  sent  a  little  library 
of  tracts.  Tea  parties  followed  by  meetings  were  found  to  be  more 
attractive  in  the  northern  towns  than  meetings  without  tea  parties. 
Places  where  meetings  had  been  thinly  attended,  now  produced 
crowds.  Cobden,  Mr.  Bright,  Mr.  Ashworth,  and  the  other  chief 
speakers,  again  scoured  the  country  north  of  the  Trent ;  and  at 
the  end  of  the  year,  the  first  two  of  these,  along  with  Colonel  Per- 
rouet  Thompson  —  the  author  of  the  famous  Catechism  of  the  Corn 
Laws,  and  styled  by  Cobden  the  father  of  them  all  —  proceeded  on 
a  pilgrimage  to  Scotland. 

"  Our  progress  ever  since  we  crossed  the  border,"  Cobden  writes, 
"  has  been  gratifying  in  the  extreme.  Had  we  been  disposed  to 
encourage  a  display  of  enthusiasm,  we  might  have  frightened  the 
more  nervous  of  the  monopolists  with  our  demonstrations.  As  it 
is,  we  have  been  content  to  allow  honors  to  be  thrust  upon  us  in 
our  own  persons,  or  rather  mine,  by  the  representatives  of  the 
people.  Glasgow,  Edinburgh,  Kirkcaldy,  Dundee,  Perth,  and  Stir- 
ling, have  all  presented  me  with  the  freedom  of  their  burghs,  and 
I  have  no  doubt  I  could  have  become  a  free  citizen  of  every  cor- 
porate town  in  Scotland  by  paying  them  a  visit.^  All  this  is  due 
to  the  principles  we  advocate,  for  I  have  done  all  I  could  to  dis- 
courage any  personal  compliments  to  myself  Scotland  is  fairly 
up  now,  and  we  shall  have  more  in  future  from  this  side  of  the 
Tweed  tipon  the  Corn  Law.  We  go  to-day  to  Glasgow  to  attend 
anpther  Free-trade  banquet.  To-morrow  we  proceed  to  Edinburgh, 
where  I  shall  remain  a  few  days  to  go  through  the  ceremony  of 
becoming  a  citizen  of  Auld  Eeekie,  and  then  go  forward  to  New- 
castle to  join  Colonel  Thompson  and  Bright  (who  have  both  been 
working  miracles),  wdio  will  take  Hawick  by  the  way  for  a  meeting 
on  Thursday  evening."  ^ 

"  I  shall  be  with  you  at  the  end  of  the  week.  The  work  has  been 
too  heavy  for  me,  and  I  have  been  obliged  to  throw  an  extra  share 
upon  Bright  and  the  old  veteran  Colonel.  I  caught  cold  in  coming 
from  Carlisle  to  Glasgow  by  night,  and  have  not  got  rid  of  it.  To- 
day has,  however,  been  very  fine,  and  I  have  enjoyed  a  long  walk 
with  George  Combe  into  the  country,  looking  at  the  farm-houses, 
each  of  which  has  a  tall  chimney  attached  belonging  to  the  engine- 
house.  I  am  obliged  to  come  from  Glasgow  here  on  Thursday  to 
go  through  the  ceremon}^  of  receiving  the  freedom  of  this  city. 
Upon  the  whole,  I  am  satisfied  with  the  aspect  of  things  in  Scot- 

1  It  is  worth  noticing  that  in  Glasgow  this  honor  was  conferred  upon  him,  not 
merely  on  the  ground  of  his  public  action,  but  because,  in  the  words  of  his  proposer, 
by  his  ingenuity  as  a  calico  printer,  he  had  brought  that  manufacture  to  such  a 
state  of  perfection  that  we  were  now  able  to  compete  v.  ith  the  printers  of  France  aiid 
Switzerland. 

2  To  George  Wilsm,  Stirling,  Jan.  18,  1843. 


170  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1843. 

land.  I  am  not  afraid  of  their  going  back  from  their  convictions, 
and  there  is  scarcely  a  man  who  is  not  against  the  present  law, 
and  nearly  all  are  going  on  to  total  repeal.  Fox  Maules's  conver- 
sion is  important.  He  is  heir  to  80,000/.  a  year  in  land,  40,000 
acres  under  the  plough."  ^ 

From  Dundee,  through  Hawick,  the  deputation  crossed  the 
border  to  Newcastle,  Sunderland,  Darlington,  and  other  towns  of 
that  region.  On  their  return  to  head-quarters,  Mr.  Bright  recounted 
to  a  crowded  meeting  at  Manchester  what  they  had  done,  and  he 
summed  up  their  impressions  of  Scotland  in  words  that  deserve  to 
be  put  on  record.  There  were  some  general  features,  Mr.  Bright 
said,  which  struck  him  very  strongly  in  their  tour  through  Scotland. 
"  In  the  first  place,  I  believe  that  the  intelligence  of  the  people  in 
Scotland  is  superior  to  the  intelligence  of  the  people  of  England. 
I  take  it  from  these  facts.  Before  going  to  the  meetings,  we  often 
asked  the  committee  or  the  people  with  whom  we  came  in  contact, 
'Are  there  any  fallacies  which  the  working  people  hold  on  this 
question  ?  Have  they  any  crotchets  about  machinery,  or  wages,  or 
anything  else  ? '  And  the  universal  reply  was, '  No ;  you  may  make 
a  speech  about  what  you  like ;  they  understand  the  question  thor- 
oughly ;  and  it  is  no  use  confining  yourself  to  machinery  or  wages, 
for  there  are  few  men,  probably  no  man  liere,  who  would  be  taken 
in  by  such  raw  jests  as  those.'  Well,  if  the  workingmen  are 
so  intelligent  in  Scotland,  how  are  the  landowners  ?  You  find,  in 
that  country,  that  the  science  of  farming  is  carried  to  a  degree  of 
perfection  which  is  almost  unknown  in  England.  You  find  them 
with  a  climate  not  so  kind  and  genial  as  ours,  for  they  often  fail 
in  gathering  in  wheat  when  the  farmers  in  the  south  of  England 
succeed ;  they  have  land  not  naturally  so  fertile  as  ours,  and  many 
are  not  so  near  a  market  to  take  off  the  whole  of  their  produce  as 
our  farmers  are  ;  but  we  find  there  that  the  landowners  are  intel- 
ligent enough  to  know  that  the  monopolists  themselves  rarely 
tlirive  under  the  monopolies  they  are  so  fond  of,  and  that  it  would 
be  much  better  for  them  to  be  subjected  to  the  same  wholesome 
stimulus  which  persons  in  othe^  pursuits  feel,  and  which  is  alike 
beneficial  to  the  people  so  engaged,  and  to  those  who  purchase  the 

articles  they  produce Well,  then,  as  to  the  middle  classes  of 

Scotland,  I  hold  that  the  municipalities  of  Scotland  represent  the 
opinion  of  the  middle  classes.  In  Glasgow,  Edinburgh,  Perth, 
and  other  towns,  we  found  that  the  members  of  the  corporations 
were  a  true  index  to  the  opinion  of  the  main  body  of  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  town  in  which  it  was  situate.  Now,  in  Glasgow, 
Edinburgh,  Kirkcaldy,  Dundee,  Perth,  and  Stirling,  the  highest 
honor  which  the  municipal  authorities  of  these  cities  and  towns 

1  Tp  F.  Cobden,  Jan.  15,  1843. 


JJr.89.]  RENEWED  ACTIVITY   OF  THE  LEAGUE.  *        171 

can  give,  has  been  conferred  upon  that  man  who  is  in  all  parts  of 
the  country,  and  throughout  the  world,  recognized  as  the  impersona- 
tion of  Free  Trade  principles,  and  of  the  An ti- Corn-Law  League. 

"  Scotland,  in  former  ages,  was  the  cradle  of  liberty,  civil  and 
religious.  Scotland,  now,  is  the  home  of  liberty ;  and  there  are 
more  men  in  Scotland,  in  proportion  to  its  population,  who  are  in 
favor  of  the  rights  of  man  than  there  are  in  any  other  equal 
proportion  of  the  population  of  this  country.  ....  I  told  them 
that  they  were  the  people  who  should  have  repeal  of  the  Union  ; 
for  that,  if  they  were  separate  from  England,  they  might  have  a 
government  wholly  popular  and  intelligent,  to  a  degree  which 
I  believe  does  not  exist  in  any  other  country  on  the  face  of  the 
earth.  However,  I  believe  they  will  be  disposed  to  press  us  on, 
and  make  us  become  more  and  more  intelligent ;  and  we  may 
receive  benefit  from  our  contact  with  them,  even  though,  for  some 
ages  to  come,  our  connection  with  them  may  be  productive  of  evil 
to  themselves." 

In  England,  at  least,  it  is  certain  that  the  amazing  vigor  and  res- 
olution of  the  League  were  regarded  with  intense  disfavor  by  great 
and  important  classes.  The  League  was  thoroughly  out  of  fashion. 
It  was  regarded  as  violent,  extreme,  and  not  respectable.  A  year 
before,  it  had  usually  been  described  as  a  selfish  and  contemptible 
faction.  By  the  end  of  1842  things  had  become  more  serious^_^ 
The  notorious  pamphleteer  of  the  Quarterly  Review  now  denounced  ' 
the  Lea<?ue  as  the  foulest  and  most  danf^erous  combination  of 
recent  times.  The  Times  spoke  of  Cobden,  Bright,  and  their 
allies,  as  "  capering  mercenaries  who  go  frisking  about  the  coun- 
try ; "  as  authors  of  incendiary  clap-trap ;  as  peripatetic  orators 
puffing  themselves  into  an  easy  popularity  by  second-hand  arguv 
ments.  They  were  constantly  accused  of  retarding  their  own 
cause,  and  frightening  away  respectable  people,  by  their  violence. 
Violence,  as  usual,  denoted  nothing  more  than  that  they  knew 
their  own  minds,  and  pressed  their  convictions  as  if  they  were  in 
earnest.  In  the  earlier  part  of  the  autumn  there  had  been  a 
furious  turn-out  of  the  operatives  in  the  mills,  and  later  on  in  the 
season  ricks  had  been  burnt  in  the  midland  and  southern  counties. 
The  League,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  its  leaders  were  nearly  all 
mill-owners,  or  connected  with  manufactures,  was  accused  of  pro- 
moting these  outrages.  There  were  loud  threats  of  criminal 
proceedings  against  the  obnoxious  confederacy.  It  was  rumored 
on  the  Manchester  Exchange  that  the  Government  had  resolved 
to  put  down  the  League  as  an  association  constituted  against  the 
law  of  the  land.  If  necessary,  a  new  law  would  be  made  to 
enable  them  to  suppress  a  body  so  seditious.  This  heat  in  the 
minds  of  the  ruling  class  made  them  anxious  at  almost  any  cost 
to  destroy  Cobden,  who  was  now  openly  recognized  as  the  fore- 


/ 


172  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1843. 

most  personage  in  the  detested  organization.     This  partly  explains 
what  now  followed. 

The  session  of  1843  opened  with  the  most  painful  incident  in 
Cobden's  parliamentary  life.  It  is  well  to  preface  an  account  of 
it,  by  mentioning  an  event  that  happened  on  the  eve  of  the  ses- 
sion, Mr.  Drummond,  the  private  secretary  of  the  Prime  Minister, 
was  shot  in  Parliament  Street,  and  in  a  few  days  died  from  the 
wound.  The  assassin  was  Daniel  M'Naghten,  a  mechanic  from 
Glasgow,  who  at  the  trial  was  acquitted  on  the  ground  of  insan- 
ity. From  something  that  he  said  to  a  police  inspector  in  his 
cell,  the  belief  got  abroad  that  in  firing  at  Mr.  Drummond  he 
supposed  that  he  was  dealing  with  Sir  Robert  Peel.  The  evidence 
at  the  trial  showed  even  this  to  be  very  doubtful,  and  in  any  case 
the  act  was  simply  that  of  a  lunatic.  But  it  shook  Sir  Kobert 
Peel's  nerves.  He  was  known  by  those  who  were  intimate  with 
him  to  have  a  morbid  sensibility  to  whatever  was  physically 
painful  or  horrible.  It  has  always  been  believed  that  his  distress 
at  the  circumstances  of  Mr.  Drummond's  death  was  the  secret  of 
the  scene  with  Cobden  which  we  have  now  to  describe. 

Lord  Howick  on  an  early  night  in  the  session  moved  that  the 
House  should  resolve  itself  into  a  committee  to  consider  a  passage 
in  the  Queen's  speech,  in  which  reference  had  been  made  to  the 
prevailing  distress.  The  debate  on  the  motion  was  a  great  affair, 
and  extended  over  five  nights.  It  was  a  discussion  worthy  of  the 
fame  of  the  House  of  Commons  —  a  serious  effort  on  the  part  of 
most  of  those  who  contributed  to  it,  to  shed  some  light  on  the 
difficulties  in  which  the  country  was  involved.  Cobden  spoke  on 
the  last  night  of  the  debate  (Feb.  17).  He  answered  in  his  usual 
dexterous  and  argumentative  way  the  statements  of  Lord  Stanley, 
Mr.  Gladstone,  and  other  opponents  of  a  repeal  of  the  Corn  Law, 
and  then  he  proceeded  to  a  fervent  remonstrance  with  the  Prime 
Minister.  I  quote  some  of  the  sentences  which  led  to  what 
followed  :  "  If  you  (Sir  Ptobert  Peel)  try  any  other  remedy  than 
ours,  what  chance  have  you  for  mitigating  the  condition  of  the 
country  ?  You  took  the  Corn  Laws  into  your  own  hands  after  a 
fashion  of  your  own,  and  amended  them  according  to  your  own 
views.  You  said  that  you  were  uninfluenced  in  what  you  did  by 
any  pressure  from  without  on  your  judgment.  You  acted  on  your 
own  judgment,  and  w^ould  follow  no  other,  and  you  are  responsible 
for  the  consequences  of  your  act.  You  said  that  your  object  was 
to  find  more  employment  for  the  increasing  population.  Who  so 
likely,  however,  to  tell  you  what  markets  could  be  extended, 
as  those  who  are  engaged  in  carrying  on  the  trade  and  manufac- 
tures of  the  country  ?  .  .  .  .  You  passed  the  law,  you  refused  to 
listen  to  the  manufacturers,  and  /  throw  on  you  all  the  responsi- 


^T.39.]         COBDEN  AND  SIR  ROBERT  PEEL.  173 

hility  of  your  cmm  measure The  right  hon.  Baronet  acted 

on  his  own  judgment,  and  he  retained  the  duty  on  the  two  articles 
on  which  a  reduction  of  duty  was  desired,  and  he  reduced  the 
duties  on  those  on  which  there  was  not  a  possibility  of  the  change 
being  of  much  service  to  the  country.  It  was  folly  or  ignorance. 
(Oh  !  Oh  !)  Yes,  it  was  folly  or  ignorance  to  amend  our  system 
of  duties,  and  leave  out  of  consideration  sugar  and  corn.  The 
reduction  of  the  duties  on  drugs  and  such  things  was  a  proper 
task  for  some  Under-Secretary  of  State,  dealing  with  the  sweep- 
ings of  office,  but  it  was  unworthy  of  any  Minister,  and  was  devoid 
of  any  plan.  It  was  one  of  the  least  useful  changes  that  ever 
was  proposed  by  any  Government.  ....  It  is  his  duty,  he  says, 
to  judge  independently,  and  act  without  reference  to  any  pressure  ; 
and  I  must  tell  the  right  hon.  Baronet  that  it  is  the  diity  of 
every   honest   omoL   independent   member  to  hold  him  individually 

responsible  for  the  present  position   of  the   country I  tell 

the  right  hon.  gentleman  that  I,  for  one,  care  nothing  for  Whigs 
or  Tories.  I  have  said  that  I  never  will  help  to  bring  back  the 
Whigs  ;  but  I  tell  him  that  the  whole  responsibility  of  the  lam- 
entable and  dangerous  state  of  the  country  rests  with  him.  It  ill 
becomes  him  to  throw  that  responsibility  on  any  one  at  this  side. 
I  say  there  never  has  been  violence,  tumult,  or  confusion,  except 
at  periods  when  there  has  been  an  excessive  want  of  employment, 
and  a  scarcity  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  The  right  hon.  Baronet 
has  the  power  in  his  hands  to  do  as  he  pleases." 

When  Cobden  sat  down,  the  Prime  Minister  rose  to  his  feet, 
with  signs  of  strong  agitation  in  his  usually  impassive  bearing. 
"  Sir,"  he  said, "  the  honorable  gentleman  has  stated  here  very  em- 
phatically, what  he  has  more  tlian  once  stated  at  the  conferences 
of  the  Anti-Corn- Law  League,  that  he  holds  me  individually  —  " 
Here  the  speaker  was  interrupted  by  the  intense  excitement  which 
his  emphasis  on  the  word,  and  the  growing  passion  of  his  manner, 
had  rapidly  produced  among  his  audience.  "  Individually  respon- 
sible," he  resumed,  "  for  the  distress  and  suffering  of  the  country ; 
that  he  holds  me  personally  responsible.  But  be  the  consequences 
of  these  insinuations  what  they  may,  never  will  I  be  influenced 
by  menaces,  either  in  this  House,  or  out  of  this  House,  to  adopt  a 
course  which  1  consider  —  "  The  rest  of  the  sentence  was  lost 
in  the  shouts  which  now  rose  from  all  parts  of  the  House.  Cob- 
den at  once  got  up,  but  to  little  purpose.  "  I  did  not  say,"  he 
began,  "  that  I  hold  the  right  hon.  gentleman  personally  responsi- 
ble." Vehement  cries  arose  on  every  side  ;  "  Yes,  yes  "  —  "  You 
did,  you  did  "  —  "  Order  "  —  "  Chair."  "  You  did,"  called  out  Sir 
Robert  Peel.  Cobden  went  on,  "  I  have  said  that  I  hold  the  right 
hon.  gentleman  responsible  by  virtue  of  his  office,  as  the  whole 
context  of  what  I  said  was  sufficient  to  explain." 


/ 


174  LIFE   OP  COBDEN.  [1843. 

The  enraged  denials  and  the  confusion  with  which  the  Minis- 
terial benches  broke  into  his  explanation,  showed  Cobden  that  it 
was  hopeless  for  the  moment  to  attempt  to  clear  himself  Sir 
Eobert  Peel  resumed  by  reiterating  the  charge  that  Cobden  had 
twice  declared  that  he  would  hold  the  Minister  individually  re- 
sponsible. This  inauspicious  beginning  was  the  prelude  of  a 
strong  and  careful  speech ;  as  strong  a  speech  as  could  be  made 
by  a  minister  who  was  not  prepared  to  launch  into  the  full  tide 
of  Cobden's  own  policy,^  and  had  only  doubtful  arguments  about 
practical  convenience  to  bring  against  the  stringent  pleas  of  logi- 
cal consistency.  What  astonishes  us  is  that  such  a  performance 
should  have  followed  such  a  preface.  Those  who  have  written 
about  Sir  Eobert  Peel's  character  have  always  been  accustomed 
to  say  that,  though  there  was  originally  a  vein  of  fiery  temper 
in  him,  yet  he  had  won  perfect  mastery  over  it;  and  his  out- 
burst against  Cobden  was  the  only  occasion  when  he  seemed  to 
fall  into  the  angry  impetuosity  that  was  familiar  enough  on  the 
lips  of  O'Connell,  or  Stanley,  or  Brougham.  He  was  taunted 
before  long  by  Mr.  Disraeli  with  imitating  anger  as  a  tactical  de- 
vice, and  taking  the  choleric  gentleman  for  one  of  his  many  parts. 
Whether  his  display  of  emotion  against  Cobden  was  artificial  or 
a  genuine  result  of  overstrung  nerves,  was  disputed  at  the  time, 
and  it  is  disputed  to  this  day  by  those  who  witnessed  the  scene. 
The  display  was  undoubtedly  convenient  for  the  moment  in 
damaging  a  very  troublesome  adversary. 

Lord  John  Eussell,  who  spoke  after  the  Minister,  had  no  par- 
ticular reason  to  be  anxious  to  defend  so  dubious  a  follower  as 
Cobden,  but  his  honorable  spirit  revolted  against  the  unjust  and 
insulting  demeanor  of  the  House.  "  I  am  sure,"  he  said,  "  that 
for  my  own  part,  and  I  believe  I  can  answer  for  most  of  those 
who  sit  round  me,  that  the  same  sense  was  not  attached  to  the 
honorable  member  for  Stockport's  words,  as  has  been  attached  by 
the  right  honorable  Baronet  and  honorable  members  opposite." 
When  Lord  John  Eussell  had  finished  a  speech  that  practically 
wound  up  the  debate,  Cobden  returned  to  his  explanation,  and 
amid  some  interruptions  from  the  opposite  benches,  as  well  as 
from  the  Speaker  on  a  point  of  order,  again  insisted  that  he  had 
intended  to  throw  the  responsibility  of  the  Minister's  measures 
upon  him  as  the  head  of  the  Government.  In  using  the  word 
"  individually,"  he  used  it  as  the  Minister  himself  used  the  per- 

1  The  peroration  of  this  speech  is  an  admirably  eloquent  comparison  between  the 
pacific  views  of  Wellington  and  Soiilt —  "men  who  have  seen  the  morning  sun  rise 
upon  living  masses  of  fiery  warriors,  so  many  of  whom  were  to  be  laid  in  the  grave 
before  that  sun  should  set"  —  and  "anonymous  and  irresponsible  writers  in  the 
public  journals,  who  are  doing  all  they  can  to  exasperate  the  differences  that  have 
prevailed  ;  and  whose  efforts  were  not  directed  by  zeal  for  the  national  honor,  but 
employed  for  the  base  purposes  of  encouraging  national  animosity,  or  promoting 
personal  or  party  interest." 


iET.39.]  COBDEN   AND   STR   ROBERT  PEEL.  175 

sonal  pronoun  when  he  said,  "  I  passed  the  tariff."  "  I  treat  him," 
Cobden  conchided,  "  as  the  Government,  as  he  is  in  the  habit  of 
treating  himself." 

Very  stiffly  Peel  accepted  the  explanation.  "  I  am  bound  to 
accept  the  construction  which  the  honorable  member  puts  upon 
the  language  he  employed.  He  used  the  word  *  individually '  in 
so  marked  a  way,  that  I  and  others  put  upon  it  a  different  expla- 
nation. He  supposes  the  word  'individually'  to  mean  public 
responsibility  in  the  situation  I  hold,  and  I  admit  it  at  once.  I 
thought  the  words  he  employed,  '  I  hold  you  individually  respon- 
sible,' might  have  an  effect,  which  I  think  many  other  gentlemen 
who  heard  them  might  anticipate." 

The  sitting  was  not  to  end  without  an  assault  on  Cobden  from 
a  different  quarter.  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  no  sooner  accepted  one - 
explanation,  than  Mr.  Roebuck  made  a  statement  that  demanded 
another.  He  taxed  Cobden  with  having  spoken  of  Lord  Brougham 
as  a  maniac ;  with  having  threatened  his  own  seat  at  Bath  ;  and 
with  having  tolerated  the  use  of  such  reprehensible  and  dangerous 
language  by  members  of  the  League,  as  justified  Lord  Brougham's 
exhortation  to  all  friends  of  Corn  Law  Reform  to  separate  them- 
selves from  such  evil  advisers.  This  incident  sprang  from  some 
words  which  Brougham  had  used  in  the  House  of  Lords  a  week 
before.  They  are  a  fine  example  of  parliamentary  mouthing,  and 
of  that  cheap  courage  which  consists  in  thundering  against  the 
indiscretions  of  an  unpopular  friend.  If  anything  could  retard 
the  progress  of  the  doctrines  of  the  League,  he  had  said,  "  it  would  v 
be  the  exaggerated  statements  and  violence  of  some  of  those  con- 
nected with  their  body  —  the  means  adopted  by  them  at 'some  of 
their  meetings  to  excite  —  happily  they  have  not  much  succeeded 
—  to  excite  discontent  and  breakings-out  into  violence  in  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  country ;  and,  above  all,  I  cannot  discharge  my 
duty  to  your  Lordships  and  to  my  own  conscience,  if  I  do  not 
express  the  utter  abhorrence  and  disgust  with  which  I  have  noted 
some  men  —  men  clothed  with  sacred  functions,  though  I  trust 
unconnected  with  the  League,  who  have  actually  in  this  very 
metropolis  of  a  British  and  Christian  community,  and  in  the  mid^ 
die  of  the  nineteenth  century  of  the  gospel  of  grace  and  peace, 
not  scrupled  to  utter  words  to  which  I  will  not  at  present  more 
particularly  allude,  but  which  I  abhor,  detest,  and  scorn,  as  being 
calculated  to  produce  fatal  effects  —  I  will  not  say  have  produced 
them — but  calculated  to  produce  the  taking  away  of  innocent  life." 

Cobden,  as  we  might  expect,  had  spoken  freely  of  this  rebuke 
as  the  result  of  a  reckless  intellect  and  a  malignant  spirit,  or 
words  to  that  effect.^     Nobody  can  think  that  Mr.  Roebuck  had 

1  Mr.  Bright  also  took  the  matter  up  in  correspondence  with  Lord  Brougham, 
and  the  language  on  both  sides  is  as  pithy  as  might  be  expected.     (Feb.  15-24.) 


y 


176  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1843. 

chosen  his  moment  very  chivalrously.  Even  now,  when  time  and 
death  are  throwing  the  veil  of  kindly  oblivion  over  the  struggle, 
we  read  with  some  satisfaction  the  denunciation  by  Mr.  Bright, 
of  the  "Brummagem  Brougham,  who,  when  the  whole  Ministerial 
side  of  the  House  was  yelling  at  the  man  who  stood  there,  the 
very  impersonation  of  justice  to  the  people,  stood  forward  and 
dared  to  throw  his  puny  dart  at  Eichard  Cobden."  There  is 
hardly  an  instance  which  illustrates  more  painfully  the  ungener- 
ous, the  unsparing,  the  fierce  treatment  for  which  a  man  must  be 
prepared  who  enters  public  life  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
sentiment  of  the  House  itself  was  against  Cobden.  It  always  is 
more  or  less  secretly  against  any  one  of  its  members  who  is  known 
to  have  a  serious  influence  outside,  and  to  be  raising  the  pub- 
lic opinion  of  constituencies  to  an  inconveniently  strong  pitch, 
Cobden  was  scarcely  allowed  to  explain  what  he  had  really  said 
to  Mr.  Eoebuck.  It  was  simply  this:  —  "If  you  justify  Lord 
Brougham  in  this  attack  on  the  ministers  who  attend  the  confer- 
ence of  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League,  you  will  get  into  trouble  at 
Bath,  and  you  will  be  considered  the  opponent  of  that  body,  and 
you  w411  have  your  Anti-Corn-Law  tea  parties,  and  some  members 
of  the  League  visiting  Bath.  So  far  from  wishing  to  see  Mr. 
Eoebuck  out  of  Parliament,"  Cobden  concluded,  "  he  is  the  last 
man  I  should  wish  to  see  removed  from  the  seat  which  he  now 
holds." 

Cobden's  own  remarks  on  this  unhappy  evening  are  better  than 
any  that  an  outsider  can  offer.  To  his  brother  Frederick  he  wrote 
as  follows  :  — 

"  The  affair  of  last  Friday  seems  to  be  working  more  and  more 
to  our  advantage.  It  has  been  the  talk  of  everybody  here,  from 
the  young  lady  on  the  throne,  down  to  the  back-parlor  visitors  of 
every  pot-house  in  the  metropolis.  And  the  result  seems  to  be  a 
pretty  general  notion  that  Peel  has  made  a  great  fool  of  himself, 
if  not  something  worse.  He  is  obliged  now  to  assume  that  he 
was  in  earnest,  for  no  man  likes  to  confess  himself  a  hypocrite, 
and  to  put  up  with  the  ridicule  of  his  own  party  in  private  as  a 

coward.     Lord was  joking  with  Eicardo  in  the  House  the 

other  night  about  him  ;  pointing  towards  Peel  as  he  was  leaning 
forward,  he  whispered,  '  There,  the  fellow  is  afraid  somebody  is 
taking  aim  at  him  from  the  gallery.'  Then  the  pack  at  his  back 
are  not  very  well  satisfied  with  themselves  at  having  been  so  pal- 
pably dragged  through  the  mud  by  him,  for  they  had  evidently 
not  considered'  that  I  was  threatening  him.  Indeed  the  fact  of 
their  having  called  for  Bankes  to  speak  after  I  sat  down,  and 
whilst  Peel  was  on  his  legs,  clearly  showed  (and  they  cannot 
escape  from  the  unpleasant  reflection)  that  they  were  unconscious 


iET.39.]  'COBDEN  AND   SIR  ROBERT  PEEL.  177 

of  any  grievance  being  felt  by  the  latter,  and  that  they  considered 
the  personality  to  refer  to  the  former.  They  now  feel  themselves 
convicted  of  having  taken  the  cue  from  Peel  and  joined  en  masse 
(without  a  conviction  in  their  own  minds  to  sanction  the  course 
they  took)  in  hunting  me  down  as  an  assassin.  They  will  hear 
more  of  it.  But  the  best  part  of  the  whole  affair  is  that  everybody 
of  every  shade  of  politics  has  read  my  speech  carefully,  in  order 
to  be  able  to  judge  of  Peel's  grounds  of  attack  upon  me.  The 
consequence  is  that  all  the  Tories  of  Oxford,  as  I  learn,  have  been 
criticising  every  word  of  it,  and  the  result,  I  am  told,  is  unfa- 
vorable to  Peel He  is  looking  twenty  per  cent  worse  since 

I  came  into  the  House,  and  if  I  had  only  Bright  with  me,  we 
could  worry  him  out  of  office  before  the  close  of  the  session.^ 

"  The  thing  is  on  its  last  legs.  The  wholesale  admissions  of  our 
principles  by  the  Government  must  prove  destructive  to  the  sys- 
tem in  no  very  long  time.  The  whole  matter  turns  upon  the 
possibility  of  their  finding  a  man  to  fill  the  office  of  executioner 
for  them,  and  when  Peel  bolts  or  betrays  them,  the  game  is  up. 
It  is  this  conviction  in  my  mind  which  induced  me  after  some 
deliberation  to  throw  the  responsibility  upon  Peel,  and  he  is  not 
only  alarmed  at  it,  but  indiscreet  enough  to  let  everybody  know 
that  he  is  so Our  meeting  last  night  was  a  wonderful  exhi- 
bition. In  the  course  of  a  couple  of  months  we  will  have  entire- 
possession  of  the  metropolis.  Nothing  will  alarm  Peel  so  much 
as  exhibitions  of  strength  and  feeling  at  his  own  door.  I  am 
overdone  from  all  parts  with  letters  and  congratulations,  and  can 
hardly  find  time  to  say  a  word  to  my  friends."  ^ 

The  enemies  of  the  League  made  the  most  of  what  had  hap- 
pened. They  spoke  of  Cobden  as  politically  ruined,  and  ruined 
beyond  retrieval.  Brougham,  with  hollow  pity,  wrote  about  the 
"  downfall  of  poor  Mr.  Cobden."  It  soon  appeared  that  there  was 
another  side  to  the  matter.  Meetings  were  held  to  protest  against 
the  treatment  which  Cobden  had  received  from  the  Minister  and 
the  House ;  sympathetic  addresses  were  sent  to  him  from  half  the 
I  towns  in  England,  and  all  the  towns  in  Scotland ;  and  for  many 
weeks  afterwards,  whenever  he  appeared  in  a  public  assembly,  he 
was  greeted  with  such  acclamations  as  had  seldom  been  heard  in  f  ^ 
public  assemblies  before.  We  may  believe  that  Cobden  was  per-  I 
fectly  sincere  when  he  said  to  one  of  his  friends :  —  "I  dislike 
this  personal  matter  for  many  good  reasons,  public  and  private. 

1  Mr.  Bright,  as  it  happened,  was  returned  to  Parliament  before  the  end  of  the 
session.  He  contested  Durham  in  April,  1843,  and  was  beaten  by  Lord  Dungan- 
nou.  The  new  member  was  unseated  on  petition,  on  the  ground  of  bribery.  Mr. 
Bright  again  offered  himself,  and  was  elected  (July,  1843). 

2  To  F.  Cobden,  Feb.  23,  1843. 

12 


178  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1843. 

We  must  avoid  any  of  this  individual  glorification  in  the  future. 
My  forte  is  simplicity  of  action,  hard  working  behind  the  scenes, 
and  common  sense  in  council ;  but  I  have  neither  taste  nor  -apti- 
tude for  these  public  displays."  ^ 

At  Manchester  some  eight  thousand  men  and  women  met  to 
hear  stirring  speeches  on  the  recent  affair.  Mr.  Bright  moved  a 
resolution  for  an  address  to  Cobden,  in  words  that  glow  with 
noble  and  energetic  passion,  while  they  keep  clear  of  hero-wor- 
ship. "  I  do  not  stand  up,"  he  said,  "  to  flatter  the  member  for 
Stockport.  I  believe  him  to  be  a  very  intelligent  and  very  honest 
man ;  I  believe  that  he  will  act  with  a  single  eye  to  the  good  of 
his  country ;  I  believe  that  he  is  firmly  convinced  of  the  truth  of 
the  great  principles  of  which  he  is  so  distinguished  an  advocate." 

It  was  in  reply  to  this  address  from  Manchester,  that  Cobden 
wrote  a  letter  to  Sir  Thomas  Potter,  with  which  we  may  close  a 
very  disagreeable  episode  :  — 

"  I  have  just  received  an  address  signed  by  upwards  of  31,000 
inhabitants  of  Manchester,  declaring  their  approval  of  my  public 
conduct  as  an  advocate  of  the  principle  of  commercial  freedom, 
and  their  indignation  at  a  late  attempt  to  give  a  perverted  and  hate- 
ful meaning  to  my  language  in  Parliament.  Allow  me  through  you, 
who  have  done  me  the  honor  to  place  your  name  at  the  head  of 
the  list  of  signatures,  to  convey  to  your  fellow-townsmen  the  ex- 
pression of  my  heartfelt  gratitude  for  this  manifestation  of  their 
sympathy  and  confidence. 

"  Whilst  1  unfeignedly  profess  my  unworthiness  to  receive  such 
a  flattering  and  unexpected  testimonial  in  reward  for  my  public 
services  generally,  I  should  feel  degraded  indeed  if  I  could  not 
conscientiously  accept  the  prompt  repudiation  of  the  conduct  im- 
puted to  me  on  a  recent  occasion.  Nay,  I  should  feel  it  to  be 
derogatory  from  my  character  as  a  man  and  a  Christian,  that  my 
countrymen  should  come  forward  to  repel  the  misinterpretation 
which  has  been  given  to  my  words,  were  it  not  necessary  on 
public  grounds  to  prevent  the  First  Minister  of  the  Crown  from 
evading,  under  any  misconstruction  of  language,  his  responsibility 
for  the  alarming  consequences  of  the  measures  of  his  Government 
—  a  responsibility  not  to  the  hand  of  the  assassin,  but  a  constitu- 
tional and  moral  responsibility  which  has  been  defined  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Edmund  Burke  :  '  Where  I  speak  of  responsibility,  I  do 
/  not  mean  to  exclude  that  species  of  it  which  the  legal  powers  of 
^  the  country  have  a  right  finally  to  exact  from  those  who  abuse  a 
public  trust :  but  high  as  this  is,  there  is  a  responsibility  which 
attaches  on  them,  from  which  the  whole  legitimate  power  of  this 

I  To  E.  Baities,  March  8,  1843. 


iET.39.]  COBDEN   AND   SIR   ROBERT   PEEL.  179 

kiDgdom  cannot  absolve  them.  There  is  a  responsibility  to  con- 
science and  to  glory,  a  responsibility  to  the  existing  world,  and  to 
that  posterity  which  men  of  their  eminence  cannot  avoid  for  glory 
or  for  shame  —  a  responsibility  to  a  tribunal  at  which  not  only 
ministers,  but  kings  and  parliaments,  but  even  nations  themselves, 
must  one  day  answer.'  ^ 

"  Never  at  any  period  of  our  history  did  this  constitutional  and 
moral  responsibility  attach  more  strongly  to  a  minister  than  at 
the  present  moment,  when  the  country  is  struggling,  amidst  dis- 
tress and  embarrassment  the  most  alarming,  against  a  system  of 
monopoly  which  threatens  the  ruin  of  our  manufactures  and  com- 
merce. That  this  system,  with  its  disastrous  consequences  of  a 
declining  trade,  a  sinking  revenue,  increasing  pauperism,  and 
a  growing  disaffection  in  the  people,  owes  its  continuance  to  the'^' 
support  of  the  present  Prime  Minister  more  than  to  that  of  his 
entire  party,  few  persons  who  have  had  the  opportunity  of  observ- 
ing the  manner  in  which  he  individualizes  in  his  own  person  the 
powers  of  government,  will  deny. 

"  That  the  withdrawal  of  his  support  from  this  pernicious  system 
would  do  more  at  the  present  moment  than  all  the  efforts  of  the 
friends  of  Free  Trade  to  effect  the  downfall  of  monopoly  has  been 
proclaimed  upon  high  authority  from  his  own  side  of  the  House. 
'  If  the  right  hon.  Baronet,'  said  Mr.  Liddell,  member  for  North 
Durham,  in  the  debate,  Feb.  3,  'had  shown  any  symptoms  of 
wavering  in  the  support  of  the  Corn  Law,  which  he  had  himself 
put  upon  a  sound  footing  last  year,  such  conduct  would  have 
been  productive  of  a  hundred  times  more  mischief  than  all  the 
denunciations  of  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League.'  With  such  evi- 
dences of  the  power  possessed  by  the  First  Minister  of  the  Crown, 
I  should  have  been  an  unworthy  representative  of  the  people,  and 
a  traitor  to  the  suffering  interests  of  my  constituents,  had  I  failed 
in  my  duty  of  reminding  him  of  his  accountability  for  the  proper 
exercise  of  his  power. 

"  Sanctioned  and  sustained  as  I  have  been  by  the  approving 
voice  of  the  inhabitants  of  Manchester,  and  of  my  countrymen 
generally,  I  shall  go  forward  undeterred  by  the  arts  or  the  violence 
of  my  opponents,  in  that  course  to  which  a  conscientious  sense  of 
public  duty  impels  me ;  and  whilst  studiously  avoiding  every 
ground  of  personal  irritation  —  for  our  cause  is  too  vast  in  its 
objects,  and  too  good  and  too  strong  in  its  principles,  to  be  made 
a  mere  topic  of  personal  altercation  —  I  shall  never  shrink  from 
declaring  in  my  place  in  Parliament  the  constitutional  doctrine*^ 
of  the  inalienable  responsibility  of  the  First  Minister  of  the  Crown 
for  the  measures  of  his  Government."  ^ 

1  These  are  the  closing  words  of  the  Third  Letter  en  a  Regicide  Peace. 

2  To  Sir  Thomas  Potter,  March  1,  1843. 


180       .  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1843. 

A  few  days  after  the  scene  in  the  House  of  Commons,  the  first 
of  those  great  meetings  was  held,  which  eventually  turned  opinion 
in  London  in  good  earnest  to  the  views  of  the  League.  The 
Crown  and  Anchor  and  the  Freemasons'  Tavern  had  become  too 
small  to  hold  the  audiences.  Drury  Lane  Theatre  was  hired,  and 
here  seven  meetings  were  held  between  the  beginning  of  March 
and  the  beginning  of  May.  The  crowds  who  thronged  the  theatre 
were  not  always  the  same  in  keenness  and  energy  of  perception, 
but  their  numbers  never  fell  short,  -and  their  enthusiasm  grew 
more  intense  as  they  gradually  mastered  the  case,  and  became  bet- 
ter acquainted  with  the  persons  and  characters  of  the  prominent 
speakers.  In  the  following  letter  to  his  brother,  Cobden  hints  at 
the  special  advantage  which  he  expected  from  these  gatherings  :  — 

"  There  is  but  one  of  their  lies,"  he  says,  referring  to  the  gossip 
of  the  Tories,  "  that  I  should  care  to  make  them  prove ;  that  is 
that  our  business  is  worth  1 0,000/.  a  year !  By  the  way,  it  is  a 
wholesome  sign  that  my  middle-class  popularity  seems  rather  to 
be  increased  by  my  avowal  of  my  origin ;  and  for  the  first  time 
probably  a  man  is  served  by  that  aristocratic  class,  who  owes 
nothing  to  birth,  parentage,  patronage,  connections,  or  education. 
Don't  listen  to  the  nonsense  about  our  being  prosecuted.  The 
enemy  has  burnt  his  fingers  already  by  meddling  with  the  Leaguers. 
Wait  till  we  have  held  two  or  three  weekly  meetings  in  Drury 
Lane  Theatre,  and  you  will  see  that  we  are  not  the  men  to  be  put 
to  the  ordeal  of  a  middle-class  jury.  Our  metropolitan  gatherings 
are  bona-fide  demonstrations  of  earnest  energetic  men  of  the 
shopkeeping  class,  a  large  proportion  under  thirty  years  of  age. 
There  is  this  advantage  from  a  middle-class  movement  in  London, 
that  it  always  carries  with  it  the  workingmen,  who  are  all  inter- 
mingled by  their  occupation  with  the  class  above  them  more 
completely  than  in  any  other  large  town.  I  observe  what  you 
say  about  the  spirit  of  our  Manchester  Tories.  The  baseness  of 
that  party  exceeds  anything  since  the  time  of  the  old  Egyptian 
worshippers  of  Bulls  and  Beetles.  But  depend  upon  it,  the 
hostility  to  the  League  is  confined  pretty  much  to  the  leaders, 
and  you  will  see  when  a  general  election  turns  upon  the  Corn 
Laws  (and  we  must  have  a  dissolution  upon  the  question  before 
settling  it),  that  the  rank  and  file  of  the  party,  the  shopkeepers 
and  owners  of  small  cottage  property,  will  either  desert  the  Tory- 
raasters,  or  fold  their  arms  and  refuse  to  go  into  action  at  their 
bidding.  But  our  salvation  will  come  from  the  rural  districts. 
The  farmers  are  already  half  alienated  from  the  landlords,  and  the 
schism  will  widen  every  rent-day.  Amidst  the  deluge  of  letters 
that  I  have  received  since  the  Peel  blunder,  are  lots  of  commu- 
nications from  farmers.  My  declaration  that  I  am  a  farmer's  son, 
seems  to  have  told  as  I  expected,  and  it  is  a  point  of  too  much 


iET.39.]  RURAL   CAMPAIGN.  181 

importance  not  to  be  made  the  most  of,  even  at  the  risk  of  being 
egotistical."  ^ 

"  The  meeting  at  Taunton  was  a  bona-fide  farmers*  gathering 
from  all  parts  of  the  division  of  Somerset,  and  there  was  but  one 
opinion  in  the  town  amongst  all  parties  who  attended  the  market, 
that  the  game  of  the  '  political  landlords '  is  all  up.  I  find  our 
case  upon  agricultural  grounds  far  stronger  and  easier  than  in 
relation  to  the  trading  interests.  Now,  depend  upon  it,  it  will  be 
just  as  we  have  often  predicted,  the  agricultural  districts  of  the 
south  will  carry  our  question.  They  are  as  a  community  in 
every  respect,  whether  as  regards  intelligence,  morality,  politics, 
or  public  spirit,  superior  to  the  folks  that  surround  you  in  Lan- 
cashire. I  intend  to  hold  county  meetings  every  Saturday  after 
Easter."  2 

The  year  1843  was  famous  for  a  great  agitation  in  each  of  the 
three  kingdoms.  O'Connell  was  rousing  Ireland  by  the  cry  of 
Bepeal.  Scotland  was  kindled  to  one  of  its  most  passionate 
movements  of  enthusiasm  by  the  outgoing  of  Chalmers  and  his 
brethren  from  the  Establishment.  In  England  the  League  against 
the  Corn  Law  was  rapidly  growing  in  flood  and  volume.  If  ever 
the  natural  history  of  agitations  is  taken  in  hand,  it  will  be  in- 
structive to  compare  the  different  methods  of  these  three  move- 
ments, two  of  which  succeeded,  while  the  third  failed. 

Cobden  never  disdained  large  popular  meetings,  to  be  counted 
by  thousands.  These  gatherings  of  great  multitudes  were  useful, 
not  merely  because  they  were  likely  to  stir  a  certain  interest  more 
or  less  durable  in  those  who  attended  them,  but  also  because  they 
impressed  the  Protectionist  party  with  the  force  and  numbers  ' 
that  were  being  arrayed  against  them.  But  he  did  not  overrate  i 
either  their  significance  or  their  value.  Chalmers,  in  his  great 
work  of  reorganizing  the  broken  Church,  always  expressed  strong 
distaste  for  large  meetings,  compared  with  small  conferences 
attended  by  none  but  those  who  could  be  persuaded  to  do  what 
he  commended.  He  wanted,  he  used  to  say,  not  the  excitement 
of  emotion,  but  the  sturdiness  and  endurance  of  good  working 
principles.  It  was  the  same  kind  of  feeling  which  made  Cobden 
always  look  back  with  peculiar  satisfaction  to  his  share  in  the 
education  of  the  farmers  in  sound  economic  principles  by  dialecti-  ,  y 
cal  disputes  from  wagons,  and  close  debate  over  the  beef  and  ale 
at  market  ordinaries. 

The  League  had  shown  the  evil  effects  of  the  Corn  Law  upon 
operatives,  shopkeepers,  manufacturers,  and  merchants.  They 
now  turned  to  another  quarter,  and  set  to  work  to  prove  that  the 

1  To  F.  Cobden,  March  11,  1843.  ^  To  F.  Cobden,  April  10,  1843. 


182  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1843. 

same  law  inflicted  still  greater  injuries  upon  the  tenant  farmers 
and  the  laborers.  The  towns  were  already  convinced,  and  the 
time  was  a  good  one  for  an  invasion  of  the  agricultural  districts. 
The  farmers  were  getting  low  prices.  They  were  disgusted  at 
the  concessions  to  Free  Trade  which  had  been  made  in  the 
budget,  especially  in  the  article  of  meat.  They  suspected  their 
parliamentary  friends  of  trickery,  and  a  selfish  deference  to  a 
plausible  Minister. 

The  meetings  in  the  counties  were  highly  successful  for  their 
immediate  purpose,  and  they  are  full  of  interest  to  look  back 
upon.  They  are,  perhaps,  the  most  striking  and  original  feature 
in  the  whole  agitation.  There  was  true  political  courage  and  pro- 
found faith,  in  the  idea  of  awakening  the  most  torpid  portion  of 
the  community,  not  by  any  appeal  to  passion,  but  by  hard  argu- 
mentative debate.  It  was  generally  accepted  that  the  contro- 
versy was  one  to  be  settled  by  arguments  and  not  by  force. 
Sir  George  Lewis  said  that  if  the  proposal  had  been  to  annihi- 
late rents  instead  of  reducing  them,  the  Protectionists  would  as 
certainly  have  gone  from  words  to  blows,  as  the  American 
slaveholders  afterwards  did  when  their  peculiar  institution  was 
touched.  One  reason  why  the  shock,  when  it  came,  was  accepted 
without  disorder,  was  that  the  League  had  succeeded  in  thor- 
oughly loosening,  if  not  in  overthrowing,  the  prejudices  of  those 
who  expected  to  be  immediately  ruined  by  the  change.  The  dis- 
cussion was  usually  conducted  in  a  fair  and  manly  spirit  on  both 
sides.  The  speakers  for  the  League  told  their  hearers  that  they 
did  not  wish  to  say  anything  personally  offensive  to  anybody; 
that  they  were  simply  anxious  that  what  was  true  on  the  subject 
of  protection  should  be  discovered  ;  and  that  they  gave  the  gentle- 
men in  the  opposition  wagon  credit  for  anxiety  to  do  the  same 
thing.  As  a  rule,  things  were  conducted  with  order  and  good 
temper.  Land  agents,  valuers,  and  auctioneers  were  angrier  dis- 
putants than  either  farmers  or  squires.  At  Dorchester  there  was 
an  attempt  to  storm  the  hustings,  but  the  Leaguers  were  prepared, 
and  a  stout  party  of  their  friends,  aided  by  the  laborers,  repulsed 
the  attack.  At  Canterbury,  where  the  cause  of  protection  was 
advocated  oddly  enough  by  Mr.  G.  P.  R.  James,  the  renowned 
novelist,  one  or  two  corn-factors  insulted  Cobden  and  Mr.  Bright, 
and  there  was  some  uplifting  of  sticks.  There  were  occasional 
tlireats  of  violence,  tossing  in  a  blanket,  and  so  forth,  beforehand. 
But  when  the  time  came,  all  passed  off  peaceably.^ 

Farmers  who  were  afraid  of  attending  meetings  in  their  own 
immediate  district,  used  to  travel  thirty  or  forty  miles  to  places 

1  When  a  visit  from  Mr.  Bright  was  announced  at  Alnwick,  the  Newcastle 
Journal  had  a  most  brutal  paragraph  to  the  effect  that  some  stalwart  yeoman 
should  take  the  matter  into  his  hands. 


iET.  39.]  RURAL  CAMPAIGN.  183 

where  they  could  listen  to  the  speakers  without  loein^  known.  / 
Enemies  came  to  the  meetings,  and  began  to  take  notes  in  a  very- 
confident  spirit,  but  as  the  arguments  became  too  strong  for  them,  j 
the  pencil  was  laid  aside,  and  the  paper  was  torn  up.  At  Nor- 
wich, the  leading  yeoman  of  the  county  put  a  number  of  ques- 
tions to  Cobden,  which  were  so  neatly  and  conclusively  answered, 
that  the  farmers  who  were  listening  to  the  controversy  burst  out 
into  loud  applause.  The  terse  sentences  in  which  Cobden  con- 
densed his  matter  carried  conviction  home.  Though  it  was  im- 
possible for  him  to  invent  new  arguments  or  discover  unfamiliar 
facts  every  day,  yet  even  those  who  were  best  acquainted  with 
the  facts  and  the  arguments,  were  struck  at  every  meeting  by  his 
power  of  selecting  and  concentrating  the  important  points,  with  a 
conversational  strength  that  brought  every  word  within  tlie  easy 
comprehension  of  the  most  careless  listener.  Antagonists  were 
sometimes  astute,  but  were  often  stupid  even  to  impenetrability. 
In  one  place,  a  clergyman  firmly  contended  that  scarcity  had 
nothing  to  do  with  dearness.  In  that  case,  Mr.  Bright  replied, 
he  need  not  be  afraid  of  repeal,  for  of  course  on  his  principles 
abundance  could  not  produce  cheapness. 

At  Hertford  the  Shire  Hall  was  so  crowded,  that  the  meeting 
was  held  in  the  open  air.  The  multitude  was  mainly  composed 
of  farmers,  and  on  the  skirts  of  the  multitude  some  of  the  most 
important  squires  in  the  county  sat  on  horseback  to  hear  the  dis- 
cussion. Cobden  spoke  for  two  hours,  and  obtained  a  sympa- 
thetic hearing  by  his  announcement  that  he  was  the  son  of  a 
Sussex  farmer,  that  he  had  kept  his  father's  sheep,  and  had  seen 
the  misery  of  a  rent-day.  It  was  at  this  meeting  at  Hertford 
that  he  first  met  Mr.  Lattimore,  the  well-known  farmer  of  Wheat- 
hampstead,  to  whom  he  was  in  the  subsequent  course  of  the 
movement  greatly  indebted  for  agricultural  facts  bearing  on  Fre'e 
Trade.i 

At  Aylesbury,  which  was  the  stronghold  of  the  Duke  of  Buck- 
ingham, after  his  address,  Cobden  was  confronted  by  a  long  list 
of  questions  from  an  anonymous  inquirer.  Would  not  Free  Trade 
lower  the  price  of  corn  and  the  means  of  employing  labor,  from 
thirty  to  fifty  per  cent  ?  Did  the  members  of  the  League  think 
the  existing  price  of  the  quartern  loaf,  which  was  then  fivepence, 

1  "I  have  not  forgotten  the  trouble  you  took  to  instruct  me  in  the  agricultural 
view  of  the  question  ;  how  you  visited  me  in  London  for  that  purpose.  I  recollect 
after  making  my  speech  in  the  House  on  the  agricultural  view  of  the  Free  Trade 
question  —  the  most  successful  speech  I  ever  made  —  that  several  county  members 
asked  me  where  my  land  lay,  thinking  I  must  be  an  experienced  proprietor  and 
farmer.  I  told  them  I  did  not  own  an  acre,  but  that  I  owed  my  knowledge  to  the 
best  farmer  of  my  acquaintance,  which  I  have  always  considered  you  to  be."  — 
Cobden  to  R.  Latti'm,ore,  April  20,  1864.  The  speech  referred  to  as  the  most  suc- 
cessful he  ever  made,  1  presume  to  be  that  of  March  13,  1845,  No.  xv.  in  the 
collected  speeches. 


184  ,  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1843. 

too  high  for  either  producer  or  consumer  ?  Cobden  answered 
tliem  with  his  usual  dexterity,  and  wound  up  with  the  crucial 
question  on  his  own  part ;  namely,  in  what  way  farmers  and 
farm-laborers  had  profited  by  the  Corn  Laws  since  1815.  A 
resolution  approving  of  the  principles  of  Free  Trade  was  then  put 
and  carried  with  a  few  dissentients  —  so  few,  that  Lord  Nugent, 
who  was  in  the  chair,  said  they  were  about  as  many  as  would 
have  held  up  their  hands  in  favor  of  Free  Trade  five  and  twenty 
years  before.  At  Uxbridge,  the  farmers  who  usually  attended  the 
corn-market,  invited  Cobden  to  explain  his  views  to  them.  The 
arrangements  for  the  meeting  were  left  entirely  in  their  own 
hands.  The  tickets  of  admission  were  issued  by  the  farmers,  and 
disposed  of  by  them ;  the  county  was  ransacked  for  supporters  of 
monopoly,  and  the  discomfiture  of  the  prophet  of  the  League  was 
confidently  predicted.  The  audience  was  more  exclusively  com- 
posed of  farmers  than  any  that  had  yet  been  held.  When  the 
time  came,  four  gentlemen,  one  after  another,  advocated  the  cause 
of  monopoly  as  ably  as  they  could,  and  the  discussion  between 
them  on  the  one  hand,  and  Cobden  and  Joseph  Hume  on  the 
other,  lasted  for  four  hours  and  a  half  In  the  end,  the  arguments 
of  the  Free  Traders  were  felt  to  be  so  absolutely  unanswerable, 
that  a  resolution  in  favor  of  total  and  immediate  repeal  was  car- 
ried by  five  to  one.  The  circumstances  were  much  the  same,  and 
the  result  was  the  same  at  Lincoln,  where  Cobden  was  accom- 
panied by  Mr.  Bright.  At  Taunton,  the  church  bells  were  rung, 
flags  with  free-trade  mottoes  were  hung  from  the  windows,  and  a 
brass  band  insisted  on  accompanying  the  deputation  from  the 
railway  to  the  place  of  meeting.  Cobden,  Mr.  Bright,  and  Mr. 
Moore  were  listened  to  with  unwearied  attention  for  more  than 
four  hours.  The  farmers  listened  at  first  with  doubt  and  sus- 
picion. Gradually  their  faces  cleared,  conviction  began  to  warm 
them,  and  at  last  such  an  impression  had  been  made,  that  eight 
hundred  farmers  out  of  a  meeting  of  twelve  hundred  persons, 
voted  in  favor  of  total  and  immediate  repeal. 

In  Bedford  Cobden  had  not  a  single  friend  or  acquaintance. 
He  had  simply  announced  as  extensively  as  he  could  by  placards, 
that  he  meant  to  visit  the  town  on  a  given  day.  The  farmers  had 
been  canvassed  far  and  wide  to  attend  to  put  down  the  represent- 
atives from  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  The  Assembly  Rooms 
could  not  hold  half  the  persons  who  had  come  together,  and  they 
adjourned  to  a  large  field  outside  the  town.  Three  wagons  were 
provided  to  serve  as  hustings,  but  the  monopolist  party  rudely 
seized  them,  and  Cobden  had  to  wait  while  a  fourth  wagon  was 
procured.  Lord  Charles  Russell  presided,  and  the  discussion  be- 
gan. The  proceedings  went  on  from  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
until  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening,  in  spite  of  heavy  showers  of 


^T.89.]  RURAL  CAMPAIGN.  185 

rain.  At  first  Cobden  was  listened  to  with  some  impatience,  but 
as  he  warmed  to  his  subject,  and  began  to  deliver  telling  strokes 
of  illustration  and  argument,  the  impression  gradually  spread  that 
he  was  right.  The  chairman  was  unwillingly  obliged  to  declare 
that  an  amendment  in  favor  of  Free  Trade  was  carried  by  a  large 
majority. 

"  We  fought  a  hard  battle  at  Bedford,"  Cobden  writes  to  his 
brother, "  against  brutish  squires  and  bull-frogs,  but  carried  it  two 
to  one,  contrary  to  the  expectations  of  every  man  in  the  county. 
Lord  Charles  Kussell  is  the  man  who  opposed  even  his  brother 
John's  fixed  duty,  declaring  at  the  time  that  it  was  to  throw  two 
millions  of  acres  out  of  cultivation.  After  Bedford,  we  can  win 
anywhere ;  and  it  is  giving  great  moral  power  to  my  movements 
in  the  rural  districts  to  be  ahvays  successful.  The  aristocracy  are 
becoming  savage  and  alarmed  at  the  war  going  on  in  their  own 
camp."  ^ 

"  On  Saturday  next,"  he  continues,  "  I  shall  be  at  Rye,  where 
there  will  be  a  grand  muster  from  all  the  eastern  part  of  our 
county  and  from  parts  of  Kent.  These  county  meetings  are  be- 
coming provokingly  interesting  and  attractive,  so  far  as  the  land- 
lords are  affected.  They  begin  to  feel  the  necessity  of  showing 
fight,  and  yet  when  they  do  come  out  to  meet  me,  they  are  sure 
to  be  beaten  on  their  own  dunghill.  The  question  of  protection 
is  now  an  open  one  at  all  the  market  tables  in  the  counties  where 
I  have  been,  and  the  discussion  of  the  question  cannot  fail  to 
have  the  right  issue."  ^ 

This  discussion  sometimes  broke  down  for  lack  of  representa- 
tives of  the  opposite  cause  :  — 

"  Our  meeting  at  Rye  was  a  very  tame  affair  for  want  of  any 
open  spirit  of  opposition.  The  audience  was  almost  as  quiet  as  a 
flock  of  their  own  Southdowns.  I  fear  the  squires  and  parsons 
will  give  up  the  old  game  of  opposition,  and  try  to  keep  the 
farmers  away.  However,  we  have  sown  the  seeds  in  the  south  of 
England  which  nothing  will  eradicate.  Wherever  I  go,  I  make 
the  Corn  question  an  open  question  at  all  the  market  tables.  And 
everywhere  are  strong-headed  men  who  take  up  our  cause.  At 
Winchester  I  found  many  intelligent  farmers.  Mr.  M.,  who 
moved  the  Free  Trade  resolution,  is,  with  his  brother,  the  largest 
occupier  in  the  county.  A  very  quiet  man,  highly  respected  :  his 
very  name  a  passport.  A  Mr.  E.  was  at  the  meeting,  who  rents 
3000  acres.  After  he'aring  our  statements,  he  remarked,  '  These 
facts  and  arguments  are  quite  unanswerable.  Every  word  is 
true.' "  ^ 

At  Penenden  Heath  (June  29),  three  thousand  of  the  men  of 

1  To  F.  W.  Cobden,.  London,  June  5,  1843.      2  Tunbridge  "Wells,  June  7,  1843. 
8  To  F.  W.  Cohden,  London,  July  20,  1843. 


186  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1843. 

Kent  assembled  to  hear  a  close  argumentative  debate  between 
Cobden  and  a  local  landowner.  Two  days  later  there  was  an 
open-air  meeting  at  Guildford,  where  Cobden  stated  his  case,  tided 
over  interruptions,  and  met  objections  from  all  comers  for  several 
hours.  We  need  not  further  prolong  the  history  of  this  summer's 
campaign.  Hereford,  Lewes,  Croydon,  Bristol,  Salisbury ,i  Can- 
terbury, and  Reading,  were  all  visited  before  the  end  of  the  ses- 
sion by  Cobden  and  Mr.  Bright,  or  some  other  coadjutor.  In  all 
of  them,  amid  great  variety  of  illustrations,  and  with  a  constantly 
increasing  stock  of  facts,  he  pinned  his  opponents  to  the  point, 
How,  when,  or  where,  have  farmers  and  farm  laborers  benefited 
by  the  Corn  Law  ?  His  greatest  victory  was  at  Colchester,  the 
chief  town  of  a  county  which  kept  its  parliamentary  representa- 
tion unsullied  by  a  single  Liberal.  The  whole  district  had  been 
astir  with  angry  expectation  for  many  days ;  the  drum  ecclesias- 
tic had  been  vigorously  beaten  all  over  the  county ;  Sir  John  Tyr- 
rell, at  this  time  one  of  the  doughtiest  followers  of  Peel,  promised 
or  threatened  to  attend ;  passions  waxed  very  high ;  special  con- 
stables were  sworn  in ;  and  the  violent  and  the  timid  alike  de- 
clared that  the  agitators  would  find  themselves  in  no  small  bodily 
peril.  Hustings  were  erected  in  a  large  field,  and  when  the  day 
came,  several  thousands  of  people  assembled  from  all  parts  of  tlie 
county.  At  the  appointed  hour  Cobden  and  Charles  Villiers  were 
at  their  posts,  and  they  were  soon  followed  by  Sir  John  Tyrrell 
and  Mr.  Ferrand.  Then  the  tournament  began.  The  battle  raged 
for  six  hours,  and  the  League  champion  achieved  a  striking  vic- 
tory. The  amendment  to  his  resolution  was  put  to  utter  rout, 
and  when  night  fell,  Sir  John  Tyrrell  was  found  to  have  silently 
vanished.  At  one  point  in  the  controversy  he  had  irrelevantly 
defied  Cobden  to  do  further  battle  with  him  at  Chelmsford.  Cob- 
den instantly  took  up  the  glove,  and  on  the  appointed  day  to 
Chelmsford  he  went.  Sir  John,  however,  had  already  had  enough 
of  an  unequal  match,  and  Cobden  carried  on  the  controversy  in 
the  usual  way  and  with  his  usual  success. 

"Will  these  repeated  discomfitures,"  cried  the  Morning  Post, 
"  induce  the  landowners  of  England  to  open  their  eyes  to  the  dan- 
gers that  beset  them  ?  What  may  be  the  causes  of  Mr.  Cobden's 
success  ?  The  primary  cause  is  assuredly  that  which  conduces  to 
the  success  of  Sir  Eobert  Peel.  Why,  indeed,  if  parliamentaiy 
landowners  deem  it  honest  and  wise  to  support  the  author  of  the 

1  It  was  at  Salisbury,  on  a  second  visit  later  in  the  year,  that  Cobden  was  re- 
ported to  have  pointed  to  the  cathedral  and  said  :  "  He  thought  the  best  thing  that 
could  happen  would  be  to  see  that  huge  monster  turned  into  a  good  factory."  Even 
his  foes  admitted  that  this  story  was  a  gross  fabrication,  but  it  was  often  revived 
against  him  in  the  days  of  the  Crimean  War.  Probably  some  one  said  that  this  was 
what  he  was  capable  of  saying,  and  then  by  well-known  mythopoeic  processes,  it 
was  believed  that  he  actually  had  said  it. 


^T.  39.]  RURAL   CAMPAIGN.  187 

Tariff  and  the  new  Corn  Law,  should  not  the  tenant  farmers  of  Eng- 
land support  Sir  Robert  Peel's  principles  when  enunciated  by  Mr. 
Cobden  ?  With  what  pretensions  to  consistency  could  Sir  John 
Tyrrell  oppose  Mr.  Cobden  on  the  hustings  at  Colchester,  after 
having  supported  all  the  Free  Trade  measures  that  had  made  the 
session  of  1842  infamous  in  the  annals  of  our  legislation  ?  .  .  .  . 
Mr,  Cobden's  speech  is  by  no  means  unanswerable.  But  Sir  John 
Tyrrell  assuredly  made  no  attempt  to  answer  it.  He  uttered  some 
things  not  devoid  of  shrewdness,  but  they  bore  as  slight  reference 
to  the  fallacies  on  which  Mr.  Cobden  traded,  as  they  did  to  the 
false  doctrines  of  the  Koran.  It  is  not,  we  fear,  by  such  men  as 
the  present  race  of  the  parliamentary  landowners  that  the  deadly 
progress  of  the  League  is  to  be  arrested." 

Mr.  Bright  once  said  at  a  public  meeting,^  that  people  had 
talked  much  more  than  was  pleasant  to  him  about  his  friend 
Cobden  and  himself,  and  he  would  tell  them  that  in  the  Council 
were  many  whose  names  were  never  before  the  public,  and  yet 
who  deserved  the  highest  praise.  He  was  sorry  that  it  should  for  a 
moment  be  supposed,  that  they  who  were  more  prominently  before 
the  public,  and  who  were  but  two  or  three,  should  be  considered 
the  most  praiseworthy.  Nor  was  he  singular.  Cobden  took 
every  opportunity  quietly  and  modestly  of  saying  the  same  thing. 
The  applause  of  multitudes  never  inflated  him  into  a  demagogue, 
as  it  was  truly  observed,  any  more  than  the  atmosphere  of  Par- 
liament and  of  London  society  ever  depressed  him  into  conven- 
tionality.^ I  cannot  find  a  trace  or  a  word  in  the  most  private 
correspondence,  betraying  on  the  part  of  any  prominent  actor  in 
the  League  a  symptom  of  petty  or  ignoble  egotism.  They  were 
too  much  in  earnest.  Never  on  a  scene  where  the  temptations 
to  vanity  were  so  many,  was  vanity  so  entirely  absent. 

Cobden's  incessant  activity,  his  dialectical  skill,  the  scandal  of 
the  recent  scene  in  the  House,  and  perhaps  the  fact  that  he  was  a 
member  of  the  House,  all  contributed  to  make  his  position  at  this  ^ 
time  conspicuous  and  unique,  but  his  simplicity  of  spirit  filled 
men  with  an  affection  and  love  for  him,  which  made  his  success 
their  own.  As  a  speaker,  nobody  knew  better  than  he  did  the 
more  stately  genius  of  his  chief  friend  and  ally.  He  once  told 
an  audience  at  Rochdale  that  at  this  time,  for  reasons  which 
they  would  be  at  no  loss  to  guess,  he  always  stipulated  that  Mr. 
Bright  should  let  him  speak  first.  From  Winchester  Mr.  Bright 
wrote  to  him,  that  they  had  promised  faithfully  that  he  should 

1  October,  1843. 

2  "Members  were  subject  to  great  temptations  in  London,  and  those  who  had 
not  been  behind  the  scenes  little  knew  the  perils  and  dangers  they  had  to  go 
through.  It  was  very  difficult  for  a  man,  however  clothed  in  the  panoply  of  principle, 
to  go  through  the  ordeal  of  a  London  season,  without  finding  his  coat  of  mail  perfo- 
rated from  one  quarter  or  another."  —  Cobden,  at  Ashton-under-Lyne,  January,  1843. 


188  LIFE   OP  COBDEN.  [1843. 

attend  the  meeting,  and  that  if  the  train  failed  to  bring  him,  they 
should  run  the  country.  If  Cobden's  name  was  mentioned  at  a 
meeting,  the  audience  would  rise  and  give  three  times  three  for 
the  member  for  Stockport,  the  friend  of  the  people.  At  Manches- 
ter, an  immense  gathering  assembled  to  present  an  address  to  him, 
formally  describing  him  as  the  leader  of  the  movement ;  and  the 
cheers  grew  more  enthusiastic  when  a  letter  from  Lord  Ducie  was 
read,  declaring  that  there  was  no  man  alive  to  whom  the  country 
was  more  indebted  than  to  Kichard  Cobden.  In  the  same  way 
the  men  on  the  other  side  singled  him  out  for  special  vitupera- 
tion ;  and  people  who  had  never  seen  a  print-works  in  their  lives 
excited  agricultural  audiences  by  asserting  that  Cobden  was  mak- 
ing enormous  wealth  at  the  expense  of  the  strength,  the  happi- 
ness, the  limbs,  and  the  very  lives  of  little  children. 

As  he  said  afterwards,  Cobden  lived  at  this  time  in  public 
meetings.  Along  with  the  county  meetings,  there  was  for  some 
time  a  weekly  gathering  at  the  Commercial  Eooms  in  Thread- 
needle  Street,  where  the  League  speakers  reiterated  their  argu- 
ments to  crowded  audiences  of  merchants  and  bankers.  There 
were  the  enthusiastic  assemblies  at  Drury  Lane  and  afterwards  at 
Covent  Garden,  in  which  the  interest  of  the  London  public  was 
so  great  that  the  report  of  them  doubled  and  trebled  the  ordinary 
sale  of  the  newspapers  on  the  following  morning.  Besides  all 
this,  Cobden  attended  to  everything  that  in  any  way  concerned 
his  own  great  subject  in  the  House  of  Commons.  There  his  posi- 
tion by  this  time  had  become  really  formidable  to  the  Minister. 
His  complete  knowledge  of  every  aspect  of  the  case,  his  tenacity, 
his  skill  in  debate,  and  the  immense  influence  which  it  was  per- 
ceived that  he  was  acquiring  out  of  doors,  had  brought  him  to  a 
front  place;  and  the  man  who  in  February  had  been  spoken  of 
as  politically  ruined,  was  by  August  exercising  a  pressure  on  the 
mind  of  Sir  Eobert  Peel,  as  strong  on  the  one  side,  as  the  pres- 
sure of  a  whole  group  of  insurgent  dukes  on  the  other. 

The  serious  subjects  of  discussion  in  Parliament  were  all  related 
to  the  social  condition  of  the  people,  and  men  noticed  how  at 
one  point  or  another  they  all  touched  the  question  of  Free  Trade. 
The  Government  brought  in  their  famous  measure  of  national 
education,  as  we  shall  afterwards  see.  The  League,  though  not 
formally  opposed  to  the  measure,  pointed  out  the  folly  of  first  by 
the  Corn  Law  taxing  the  people  into  poverty,  and  then  taxing  the 
impoverished  to  pay  for  the  instruction  of  the  starving.  Charles 
BuUer  pressed  his  scheme  of  state-aided  emigration.^     The  League 

1  In  his  speech  BuUer  reproached  Cobden  with  condescending  to  practise  on  the 
ignorance  of  his  audience  by  resort  to  stale  theatrical  clap-trap,  which  must  have 
been  suggested  to  him  by  the  genius  of  Drury  Lane  — where  he  was  speaking.  As 
this  particular  passage  has  been  much  applauded  by  Cobden's  admirers,  both  abroad 


Mt.S9.']  RURAL  CAMPAIGN.  189 

retorted  that  if  the  Corn  Law  were  repealed,  there  would  be  no 
need  for  emigration.  A  Free  Trader  moved  for  a  committee  to 
inquire  into  the  burdens  and  exemptions  peculiar  to  the  landed 
interest.  A  county  member  proposed  an  amendment  that  the 
House  should  direct  its  attention  to  Associations  which,  in  mat- 
ters affecting  agriculture  and  commerce,  pretended  to  influence 
the  Legislature,  and  which  by  their  combination  and  proceedings 
were  dangerous  to  the  public  peace  and  inconsistent  with  the 
spirit  of  the  constitution.  Cobden  retaliated  with  a  vigorous  ac- 
count of  the  state  of  the  laborers  on  the  county  member's  own 
estates,  and  by  the  telling  fact  that  in  that  very  county  of  Dorset 
one  out  of  every  seven  of  the  population  was  a  pauper.  On  the 
occasion  of  Mr.  Villiers's  annual  motion  for  a  committee  to  con- 
sider the  duties  on  foreign  corn  with  a  view  to  their  immediate 
abolition,  Cobden  made  one  of  the  most  spirited  of  his  speeches 
on  a  subject  on  w^hich  it  appeared  that  everything  had  been  said.^ 
It  was  circulated  by  hundreds  of  thousands  of  copies,  and  pro- 
duced a  great  effect  upon  opinion.  The  Government  introduced 
a  bill  for  the  repeal  of  the  restrictions  on  the  export  of  machin- 
ery. Cobden  supported  the  removal  of  this  last  prohibition  on  ^ 
the  Statute-book.  Later  in  the  Session,  he  made  a  vigorous  at- 
tack on  the  Sugar-duties,  and  the  policy  of  giving  a  preference  v^ 
to  the  produce  of  the  British  colonies,  when  the  colonies  contrib- 
uted nothing  to  the  revenue,  and  burdened  us  with  civil  and 
military  expenses.  The  whole  colonial  trade  amounted  only  to 
10,000,000/.  a  year,  and  to  maintain  this,  5,000,000/.  were  spent 
by  the  mother  country.  The  West  Indian  sugar-grower  was  the 
natural  ally  of  the  British  corn-grower,^  and  with  equal  zeal  the 

and  at  home,  I  venture  to  reproduce  it :  *'  Did  the  men  who  signed  that  memorial 
ever  go  down  to  St.  Catherine's  Dock,  and  see  an  emigration  ship  about  to  start  on 
its  voyage  ?  Had  they  seen  these  poor  emigrants  sitting  till  the  moment  of  de- 
parture on  the  stones  of  the  quay,  as  if  they  would  cling  to  the  last  to  the  land  of 
their  birth  ?  They  need  not  inquire  what  were  their  feelings  ;  they  would  read 
their  hearts  in  their  faces.  Had  they  ever  seen  them  taking  leave  of  their  friends  ? 
He  had  watched  such  scenes  over  and  over  again.  He  had  seen  a  venerable  woman 
taking  leave  of  her  grandchildren,  and  he  had  seen  a  struggle  between  the  mother 
and  the  grandmother  to  retain  possession  of  a  child.  As  these  emigrant-vessels  de- 
parted from  the  Mersey  to  the  United  States,  the  eyes  of  all  on  deck  were  directed 
back  to  the  port  whence  they  had  started,  and  the  last  objects  which  met  their  gaze, 
as  their  native  land  receded  from  their  view,  were  the  tall  bonding-houses  of  Liv- 
erpool, where  under  the  lock  —  he  was  going  to  say  the  Queen's  lock,  but  under 
the  lock  of  the  -aristocracy  —  were  shut  up  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  barrels 
of  the  finest  flour  of  America  —  the  only  object  that  these  unhappy  wanderers 
were  going  inquest  of."  His  friends,  he  was  told,  did  not  know  he  had  so  much 
sentiment  and  eloquence  in  him. 

^  No.  IV.  in  the  collected  speeches. 

2  The  following  extract  from  one  of  Cobden's  speeches  at  Covent  Garden  states 
his  argument,  and  is  a  characteristic  illustration  of  his  style  :  — 

'*  Now,  what  is  the  pretence  for  monopoly  in  sugar  ?  They  cannot  say  that  it 
benefits  the  revenue  ;  neither  is  it  intended  to  benefit  the  farmer  in  England,  or 
the  negro  in  the  West  Indies.     What,  then,  is  the  pretence  set  up  ?    Why,  that  we 


190  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1843. 

Protectionist  organs  took  np  both  causes  against  Cobden's  pene- 
trating attacks.  These  organs  persisted  in  reproaching  their  party 
in  the  two  Houses  with  weakness  in  defence  of  the  sacred  cause. 
There  was  disunion  and  want  of  confidence  throughout  the  party. 
Mr.  Gladstone  eloquently  expounded  the  principles  of  Free  Trade, 
though  it  was  true  that  he  gave  the  adroitest  reasons  for  not  ap- 
plying them.  Mr.  Cobden,  they  said,  was  a  man  of  great  energy, 
shrewdness,  and  strength  of  will,  but  the  true  cause  of  his  suc- 
cesses in  debate  was  the  want  of  spirit  in  those  who  should  have 
been  his  active  adversaries.  Was  it  not  melancholy  and  even  in- 
sufferable to  witness  "  the  landholders  of  England,  the  representa- 
tives of  the  blood  of  the  Norman  chivalry,  shrinking  under  the 
blows  aimed  at  them  by  a  Manchester  money-grubber  "  ? 

Unhappily  there  was  nobody  in  Manchester  to  whom  this  evil 
designation  was  less  applicable.  Only  a  week  before  the  close 
of  the  session,  Cobden  wrote  to  his  brother  :  — 

"  Your  account  is  surely  enough  a  bad  turn  up.  There  must 
be  something  radically  fallacious  in  our  mode  of  calculating  cost 
or  fixing  prices.  Not  that  I  expected  very  much  this  year,  be- 
cause our  last  autumn  must  have  been  a  serious  loss,  and  the 
spring  business  squeezed  into  too  small  a  space  of  time  to  do 
great  things  in.  We  must  have  a  rigid  overhauling  of  expenses, 
and  see  if  they  can  be  reduced ;  and  if  not,  we  must  at  all  events 
fix  our  prices  to  cover  all  charges.  I  rather  suspect  we  made  a 
blunder  in  fixing  them  too  low  last  spring.     But  with  our  present 

must  not  buy  slave-grown  sugar  !  I  believe  that  the  ambassador  from  the  Brazils 
is  here  at  present,  and  I  think  I  can  imagine  an  interview  between  him  and  the 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trade.  He  delivers  his  credentials  ;  he  has  come  to 
arrange  a  treaty  of  commerce.  I  think  I  see  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade 
calling  up  a  solemn,  earnest,  pious  expression,  and  saying,  *  You  are  from  the 
Brazils  —  we  shall  be  happy  to  trade  with  you,  but  we  cannot  conscientiously 
receive  slave-grown  produce  ! '  His  Excellency  is  a  good  man  of  business  ;  so  he 
says,  *  Well,  then,  we  will  see  if  we  can  trade  together  in  some  other  way.  What 
have  you  to  sell  us  ? '  '  Why,'  returns  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  *  cotton 
goods  ;  in  these  articles  we  are  the  largest  exporters  in  the  world  ! '  '  Indeed  ! ' 
exclaims  his  Excellency  ;  *  cotton,  did  you  say  ?  Where  is  cotton  brought  from  ? ' 
'  Why,'  replies  the  Minister,  'hem  —  chieily  from  the  United  States,'  and  at  once 
the  question  will  be,  *  Pray,  is  it  free-grown  cotton  or  slave-grown  cotton  ? '  Now, 
1  leave  you  to  imagine  the  answer,  and  I  leave  you  also  to  picture  the  countenance 
of  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade.  .  .  .  Now,  have  any  of  you  had  your 
humanity  entrapped  and  your  sympathies  bamboozled  by  these  appeals  against 
slave-grown  produce  ?  Do  you  know  how  the  law  stands  with  regard  to  the  sugar 
trade  at  present  ?  We  send  our  manufactures  to  Brazil  as  it  is  ;  we  bring  back 
Brazilian  sugar;  that  sugar  is  refined  in  this  country —  refined  in  bonding  ware- 
houses, that  is,  warehouses  where  English  people  are  not  allowed  to  get  at  it  —  an(l 
it  is  then  sent  abroad  by  our  merchants,  by  those  very  men  who  are  now  preaching 
against  the  consumption  of  slave-grown  sugar.  Ay,  those  very  men  and  their  con- 
nections who  are  loudest  in  their  appeals  against  slave-grown  sugar,  have  bonding 
warehouses  in  Liverpool  and  London,  and  send  this  sugar  to  Russia,  to  China,  to 
Turkey,  to  Poland,  to  Egypt ;  in  short,  to  any  country  under  the  sun  —  to  coun- 
tries, too,  having  a  population  of  500,000,000;  and  yet  these  men  will  not  allow 
you  to  have  slave-grown  sugar  here." 


7ET.39.]  RURAL  CAMPAIGN.  191 

reputat;ion,  we  must  not  give  our  goods  away.  The  truth  is,  a 
great  portion  of  our  Manchester  trade  has  always  been  done  at  no 
profit  or  at  a  loss.  Still  I  do  not  fall  into  your  despair.  We 
have  the  chance  of  righting  ourselves  yet.  For  after  all,  our 
great  losses  have  always  arisen  from  fluctuations  in  the  value 
of  the  stock,  and  there  is  no  risk  in  that  way  for  some  years  to 
come.  As  to  other  matters  hanging  over  us,  they  can  only  be 
righted  by  a  general  revival  of  the  district,  and  we  shall  get  Free 
Trade  from  the  necessities  of  the  Exchequer."  ^ 

The  session  came  to  an  end ;  it  does  not  appear,  however,  that  / 
he  suffered  himself  to  be  long  detained  from  the  great  work  by 
private  affairs.  He  went  for  two  or  three  weeks  with  his  family 
to  the  south  of  England  for  a  breath  of  calm.  By  the  middle  of 
September,  he  and  Mr.  Bright  were  again  at  work  at  Oxford,  Lan- 
caster, and  elsewhere.  They  wei?e  ubiquitous ;  to-day  at  Man- 
chester, to-morrow  at  Lincoln,  this  week  at  Salisbury,  the  next  in 
Haddingtonshire.  A  day  without  a  meeting  was  said  to  be  as 
deplorable  to  them,  as  the  merciful  emperor's  day  without  a  good 
deed.  The  following  extracts  from  letters  to  his  wife  and  his 
brother,  from  October  to  January  (1844),  will  serve  to  show  how 
Cobden  passed  the  autumn  and  winter. 

"  I  have  been  incessantly  occupied  travelling  or  talking  since  I 
saw  you,  having  made  the  journey  across  Northumberland,  Cum- 
berland, and  Haddingtonshire  twice.  We  go  to-morrow  to  Ken- 
dal to  give  Warburton  a  lift,  and  I  shall  be  home  on  Tuesday.  I 
have  seen  much  to  gratify  and  instruct  me.  We  spent  a  couple 
of  days  with  Hope,  and  his  neighbors  the  East  Lothian  farmers. 
They  are  a  century  before  our  Hants  and  Sussex  chawbacons.  In 
fact,  they  are,  by  comparison,  educated  gentlemen  and  practical 
philosophers,  and  their  workpeople  are  more  like  Sharp  and 
Eoberts's  skilled  mechanics  than  our  round-frocked  peasantry. 
Our  farmers  cannot  be  brought  to  the  Scotch  standard  by  Lord 
Ducie  or  a  hundred  Lord  Ducies.  The  men  are  wanting.  We 
have  better  soil  and  climate,  and  the  live  and  dead  stock  may  be 
easily  brought  to  match  them,  but  the  two-legged  animals  will 
not  do  in  the  present  generation.  We  have  seen  much  to  encour- 
age us.  I  have  no  doubt  the  Haddingtonshire  farmers  will  com- 
mence an  agitation  against  the  Corn  Laws,  which  will  be  a 
nucleus  for  independent  action  amongst  their  class  elsewhere. 
The  Northumberland  farmers  especially  in  the  north  are  nearly 
upon  a  par  with  them,  and  they  are  just  as  likely  to  aid  us. 
Altogether  I  am  full  of  hope  from  the  experience  of  the  last 
week.  I  feel  no  doubt  that  we  shall,  before  Parliament  meets, 
get  a  declaration  signed  by  1000  farmers  in  all  parts  of  the  king- 

1  To  F.  W.  Cohden,  London,  Aug.  17,  1843. 


192  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1844. 

dom,  declaring  the  Corn  Law  to  have  been  a  cheat  upon  the 
tenantry."  ^ 

"Aberdeen,  Jan.  14,  1844.  —  Here  we  are  happily  at  the  far 
end  of  our  pilgrimage,  and  on  Tuesday  morning  we  hope  to  turn 
our  faces  homeward.  It  has  been  a  hard  week's  work.  After 
finishing  our  labors  at  Perth,  I  expected  to  have  had  a  quiet  day 
yesterday.  We  started  in  the  morning  by  the  coach  for  this 
place,  but  in  passing  through  Forfar  we  found  all  the  inhabitants 
at  their  doors  or  in  the  streets.  They  had  heard  of  our  intended 
passage  through  their  town,  and  a  large  crowd  was  assembled  at 
the  inn  where  the  coach  stopped,  which  gave  us  three  cheers ; 
and  nothing  would  do  but  we  must  stop  to  give  them  an  address. 
We  consented,  and  immediately  the  temperance  band  struck  up, 
and  paraded  through  the  town,  and  the  parish  church  bells  were 
set  a  ringing,  in  fact  the  whole  town  was  set  in  a  commotion. 
We  spoke  to  about  two  thousand  persons  in  the  parish  church, 
which,  notwithstanding  that  it  was  Saturday  evening,  was  granted 
to  us.  It  was  the  first  time  we  ever  addressed  an  A-nti-Corn-Law 
audience  in  a  parish  church.  Forfar  is  a  poor  little  borough  with 
a  great  many  weavers  of  coarse  linens,  and  their  enthusiasm  is 
nearly  all  we  can  expect  from  them.  A  subscription  of  about  a 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds  will,  however,  be  raised.  We  expect 
better  things  in  the  way  of  money  here.  Aberdeen  is  a  fine 
large  town  with  several  extensive  manufactories,  and  a  good  ship- 
ping port.  But  strange  to  say,  it  is  almost  the  only  place'  in 
Scotland  where  the  capitalists  seem  to  have  taken  no  part  in  the 
Free-trade  movement.  But  I  hope  we  shall  be  able  to  stir  them 
up  to-morrow.  We  shall  depart  from  this  on  Tuesday  morning 
at  half-past  five  for  the  south,  stopping  at  Montrose  for  a  midday 
meeting,  and  then  proceeding  on  to  Dundee  for  a  great  meeting 
in  the  evening.  Thus  you  see  we  are  working  double  tides, 
travelling  miles  by  coach  and  holding  two  meetings  aj,  day.  I 
hope  we  shall  last  it  out  for  another  week.  We  are  to  have  two 
large  meetings  here  to-morrow.  The  deputation  separated  into 
two  parties  at  Edinburgh.  Moore  and  T  came  north,  and  Bright 
and  Colonel  Thompson  went  to  the  west  of  Scotland,  taking 
Paisley,  Kilmarnock,  and  Greenock,  and  we  shall  all  meet  again 
at  Newcastle  on  Saturday  next.  We  find  a  great  change  in  the 
temperature  in  these  northern  regions.  There  is  a  hard  frost,  and 
the  highlands  are  covered  with  snow.  I  have  thus  far  escaped  a 
cold,  and  find  my  health  good ;  in  fact,  notwithstanding  my  hard 
work,  I  have  been  better  this  winter  than  ever,  having  escaped 
my  usual  fit  of  inflammation  in  my  eyes.  I  think  there  is  a 
special  Providence  watching  over  the  Leaguers." 

To  F.  W.  Cohden,  Carlisle,  Oct.  27,  1843. 


j:t.40.]  rural  campaign.  193 

"Dundee,  Jan.  17,  1844.  —  I  am  nearly  overdone  with  work, 
two  meetings  at  Aberdeen  on  Monday,  up  at  four  on  Tuesday, 
travelled  thirty-five  miles,  held  a  meeting  at  Montrose,  and  then 
thirty-five  miles  more  to  Dundee,  for  a  meeting  the  same  evening. 
To-morrow  we  go  to  Cupar  Fife,  next  day,  Leith,  the  day  follow- 
ing, Jedburgh." 

''  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  Jan.  22.  —  I  got  here  last  night  from  Jed- 
burgh, where  we  had  the  most  extraordinary  meeting  of  all.  The 
streets  were  blocked  up  with  country  people  as  we  entered  the 
place,  some  of  whom  had  come  over  the  hills  for  twenty  miles. 
It  is  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch's  country,  but  he  would  be  puzzled 
to  find  followers  on  his  own  lands  to  fight  his  battles  as  of  old. 
To-night  we  meet  here,  to-morrow  at  Sunderland,  the  day  after  at 
Sheffield,  where  you  will  please  address  me  to-morrow,  on  Thurs- 
day we  shall  be  at  York,  and  on  Friday  at  Hull,  and  in  Man- 
chester on  Saturday  evening."  ^ 

"Hull,  Jan.  26,  1844.  —  I  shall  leave  this  place  to-morrow  by 
the  train  at  half-past  ten,  and  expect  to  reach  Manchester  by 
about  five  o'clock.  I  am,  I  assure  you,  heartily  glad  of  the  pros- 
pect of  only  two  days'  relaxation  after  the  terrible  fagging  I  have 
had  for  the  last  three  weeks.  To-day  we  have  two  meetings  in 
Hull.  I  am  in  the  Court  House  with  a  thousand  people  before 
me,  and  Bright  is  stirring  up  the  lieges  with  famous  effect.  He 
is  reminding  the  Hull  people  of  the  conduct  of  their  ancient 
representative,  Andrew  Marvell,  and  talking  of  their  being  un- 
worthy of  the  graves  of  their  ancestors  over  which  they  walk. 
We  shall  have  another  meeting  this  evening." 

There  was  one  drawback  to  the  Scotch.  Before  they  crossed 
the  border,  the  Leaguers  had  held  meetings  in  Leicester,  Notting- 
ham, Sheffield,  Leeds,  where  they  got  a  couple  of  thousand  pounds 
before  they  left  the  room.  At  a  Scotch  meeting,  Cobden  tells 
Mrs.  Cobden,  "  we  found  that  to  name  money  was  like  reading 
the  Eiot  Act,  for  dispersing  them.  They  care  too  much  for 
speeches  by  mere  politicians  and  Whig  aristocrats."  But  the 
results  of  the  campaign  were  in  the  highest  degree  valuable.  The  , 
deputation  strengthened  the  faith  in  all  the  places  that  they  "^ 
visited,  revived  interest  and  conviction,  and  brought  back  to 
Manchester  a  substantial  addition  to  the  funds  of  their  asso- 
ciation. 

The  following  letter  to  Mr.  George  Wilson  belongs  to  this  date, 
and  illustrates  a  point  on  which  Cobden  and  his  friends  were 
always  most  solicitous.  It  is  written  from  Durham^  for  which  Mr. 
Bright  had  been  returned  as  member  in  the  previous  July :  — 

"You  will  remember  that  when  Bright  won  this  place,  the 


I 


To  F.  W.  Cobden,  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  Jan.  22,  1844. 
13 


194  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1844. 

Whigs  (that  is,  the  Chronicle)  tried  to  make  it  a  Whig  triumph, 
which  Bright  spoilt  by  his  declaration  at  the  Crown  and  Anchor, 
*  that  it  was  not  a  party  victory.'  Now  your  best  plan  at  Co  vent 
Garden  on  Thursday  will  be  to  prevent  the  Whigs  playing  us  off 
against  the  Tories,  by  declaring  that  the  City  election  was  a  trial 
of  strength  not  between  the  League  and  the  Ministry,  or  between 
the  League  and  the  Tory  party,  but  between  Free  Trade  and 
/  Monopoly.  There  is  no  way  so  certain  of  bringing  the  Whigs  to 
v"  our  ranks,  as  by  showing  them  that  they  will  not  be  allowed  to 
make  a  sham  fight  with  the  Tories  at  our  expense.  Depend  on  it 
the  Whigs  are  now  plotting  how  they  can  use  us  and  throw  us 
aside.  The  more  we  show  our  honesty  in  refusing  to  be  made 
the  tools  of  a  party,  the  more  shall  we  have  the  confidence  of  the 
moderate  and  honest  Tories.  You  have  now  an  opportunity  of 
putting  us  right  with  both  parties,  and  I  hope  you  will  give  the 
right  tone  to  the  speaking  at  Covent  Garden."  ^ 


CHAPTER  XIIL 

THE  SESSION    OF   1844  —  FACTORY  LEGISLATION  —  THE 
CONSTITUENCIES. 

The  statistics  of  agitation  sometimes  raise  a  smile.  The  nice 
measurement  of  argumentative  importunity  in  terms  of  weight 
and  bulk,  seems  incongruous  in  connection  with  anything  so  com- 
plex, so  volatile,  so  invisibly  rooted  as  opinion.  We  all  know 
how  at  each  annual  meeting  the  listeners  receive  these  figures  of 
tracts,  pamphlets,  and  leaflets  with  the  same  kind  of  enthusiasm 
with  which  a  farmer  surveys  his  mountains  of  quickening  manure. 
At  Manchester,  in  the  autumn  of  1843,  the  report  was  stupendous. 
Five  hundred  persons  had  been  employed  in  distributing  tracts 
from  house  to  house.  Five  millions  of  such  tracts  had  been 
delivered  to  parliamentary  electors  in  England  and  Scotland ;  and 
the  total  distributed  to  non-electors  and  others  had  been  upwards 
of  nine  millions.  The  weight  of  papers  thus  circulated  was  no 
less  than  one  hundred  tons.  One  hiyidred  and  forty  towns  had 
been  visited,  and  there  had  been  five  and  twenty  meetings  in  the 
agricultural  districts.  It  was  resolved  that  the  new  campaign 
should  be  conducted  with  redoubled  vigor.  In  October  (1843), 
after  a  vehement  contest,  in  which  the  Monopolist  candidate  was 

1  To  George  TTilson,  Durham,  October  24,  1843. 


^T.40.]  THE   SESSION   OF   1844.  195 

backed  by  all  the  influence  of  the  Government,  a  Free  Trader  was 
returned  for  the  city,  and  this  great  victory  gave  new  heart  to  the 
movement  throughout  the  country.  Fifty  thousand  pounds  had 
been  expended  in  the  current  year.  A  fund  of  a  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds  was  demanded  for  the  year  to  come ;  and  before  the 
end  of  1844  nearly  ninety  thousand  pounds  of  that  sum  had 
actually  been  raised.  Of  this  amount,  nearly  fourteen  thousand 
pounds  were  subscribed  at  a  single  meeting  in  Mancliester. 
Cobden  had,  at  that  time  at  any  rate,  supreme  faith  in  the  potency 
of  this  vast  propagandism.  He  still  believed  that  if  you  brought 
truth  to  people's  doors,  they  must  embrace  it.  Projects  for  the 
establishment  of  newspapers  for  the  spread  of  the  views  of  his 
school,  always  interested  him  keenly.  The  following  letter  to 
Mr.  Bright  describes  the  beginnings  of  one  of  the  most  excellent 
journals  of  the  time :  — 

"  I  wish  I  could  have  a  little  talk  with  you  and  Wilson  about 
the  removal  of  the  Circular  to  London.  James  Wilson  ^  has  a 
plan  for  starting  a  weekly  Free-  Trader  by  himself  and  his  friends, 
to  be  superintended  by  himself.  But  he  does  not  intend  this 
unless  he  can  have  the  support  of  the  League,  or  at  least  its 
acquiescence.  He  has  a  notion  that  a  paper  would  do  more  good 
if  it  were  not  the  organ  of  the  League,  but  merely  their  indepen- 
dent supporter.  But  then  what  is  the  League  to  do  for  an  organ  ? 
If  we  start  another  weekly  paper,  it  would  clash  with  his.  Vil- 
liers  seems  to  have  been  rather  taken  with  James  Wilson's  plan, 
and  it  would  undoubtedly  be  desirable  to  have  Wilson's  pen  at 
work.  It  is  quite  clear  that  the  League  must  have  its  organ. 
The  question  for  us  to  decide  is  what  kind  of  paper  shall  we  have? 
Is  it  to  be  simply  a  removal  of  the  Anti-Bread-Tax  Circular  to 
London  with  the  change  of  the  title  to  the  League  Circular  and 
to  be  still  confined  exclusively  to  the  one  object  and  movement  of 
the  League,  or  must  we  enlarge  to  a  sixpenny  paper,  and  whilst 
keeping  corn  prominent,  attack  collaterally  sugar,  and  coffee  ?  If 
we  stick  to  the  Circular  in  its  present  character,  then  another 
Free-trade  paper  might  be  started ;  if  we  adopted  the  enlarged 
paper,  then  it  would  be  folly  in  James  Wilson  to  undertake 
another,  and  he  would  not  attempt  it."  ^ 

In  the  long-run  Mr.  Wilson  started  his  own  newspaper,  which 
he  called  the  Economist.     The  Circular  was  suppressed,  and  the^ 
League  was  published  in  its  stead,  conveying,  as  Cobden  said, 
every  syllable  of  their  speeches  to  twenty  thousand  people  in  alt 
the  parishes  of  the  kingdom.     Before  describing  a  more  important 

1  Afterwards  Secretary  to  the  Treasury,  and  Financial  Member  of  the  Council  of 
India.  A  most  interesting  account  of  Mr.  Wilson  is  to  be  found  in  the  Literary 
Studies  of  the  late  Walter  Bagehot  (vol  i.  pp.  367-406). 

2  To  Mr,  Bright,  June  21,  1843. 


196  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1844, 

move  in  the  Manchester  tactics,  I  have  to  say  something  of 
Cobclen's  action  in  Parliament,  where  a  very  momentous  subject 
presently  engaged  attention. 

In  the  session  of  1844  the  Corn  Laws  fell  into  the  background. 
Mr.  Cardwell,  in  seconding  the  motion  on  the  Address,  made  a 
marked  impression  by  a  collection  of  evidence  that  trade  was 
reviving.  The  revival  of  trade  weakened  the  strongest  argument 
of  the  agitators,  because  it  diminished  the  practical  urgency  of 
their  question.  Parliament  is  always  glad  of  an  excuse  for  leav- 
ing a  question  alone,  and  the  slightest  improvement  in  the  markets 
was  welcomed  as  a  reason  for  allowing  the  Corn  Law  to  slumber. 
The  Prime  Minister  took  advantage  of  such  a  state  of  things  to 
quell  the  sullen  suspicion  of  the  agricultural  party,  by  emphatic 
declarations  that  the  Government  had  never  contemplated,  and 
did  not  then  contemplate,  any  alteration  in  the  existing  law. 
Kepeal  he  hardly  deigned  to  notice  ;  it  would,  he  said,  produce 
the  greatest  confusion  and  distress.  There  was,  no  doubt,  the 
alternative  of  a  fixed  duty  ;  but  if  it  should  happen  that  the  agri- 
culturists should  come  to  prefer  that  to  his  sliding  scale,  then  he 
was  inclined  to  think  that,  not  he,  but  Lord  John  Kussell  would 
be  the  proper  person  to  make  the  change.  So  closely  did  Peel 
habitually  trim  his  sails  to  suit  the  shifting  of  the  winds. 

In  consequence  of  this  declaration  of  the  Minister,  and  of  the 
improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  population,  comparatively 
slight  attention  was  paid  to  the  discussion  on  Mr.  Villiers's  annual 
Motion  (June  25).  The  League  was  violently  abused  by  the 
Mileses,  Bankeses,  Ferrands,  and  Sir  John  Trollopes.  It  was 
again  and  again  asserted  that  the  rate  of  wages  was  regulated  by 
the  price  of  corn,  and  that  the  avowed  object  of  the  agitators  was 
to  lower  wages  by  lowering  corn.  Cobden  replied  to  such  serious 
arguments  as  he  could  find  in  the  course  of  the  debate,  but  the 
front  bench  on  the  side  of  the  Opposition  was  empty  for  most  of 
the  evening ;  Lord  John  Eussell  declined  to  vote ;  Mr.  Bright  was 
listened  to  with  so  much  impatience  that  he  was  forced  to  sit 
down  ;  and  a  very  hollow  performance  ended  with  a  majority  of 
204  against  the  Motion.^ 

In  the  earlier  part  of  the  session  (March  12),  Cobden  had 
moved  for  a  Select  Committee  to  inquire  into  the  effects  of 
protective  duties  on  agricultural  tenants  and  laborers.  This  was 
a  new  approach.  The  main  argument  for  repeal  had  hitherto 
been  from  the  side  of  the  manufacturing  population.  In  what 
way,  save  by  the  admission  of  foreign  corn  in  exchange  for  British 
manufactures,  could  we  secure  extended  markets ;  or,  in  other 
words,  extended  demand  for  the  industry  of  the  people  ?     Cobden 

1  328  against  124. 


^T.40.]  THE   SESSION   OF   1844.  197 

now  turned  to  the  agricultural  side  of  the  question,  and  asked  the 
House  of  Commons,  as  he  had  asked  the  farmers  during  the  pre- 
vious year,  to  examine  what  advantage  the  Corn  Law  had  brought 
to  the  agriculturists  themselves.  He  described  the  condition  of 
the  laborer,  morally,  socially,  and  economically;  said  that  it  was  the 
fear  of  falling  into  this  condition  which  caused  the  strikes  of  the 
workmen  in  the  towns ;  and  asked  how  a  starved  population  of 
this  kind  could  form  that  valuable  class  of  domestic  consumers, 
who  were  held  out  by  the  landlords  to  the  manufacturers  as  ade- 
quate compensation  for  loss  of  customers  abroad.  The  official 
duty  of  reply  fell  to  Mr.  Gladstone.  His  answer  turned  mainly 
on  the  inexpediency  of  assenting  to  a  motion  which  would  imply 
that  the  Corn  Law  was  an  open  question,  and  which  would  there- 
fore tend  to  unsettle  trade,  disturb  the  revenue,  and  increase  the 
excitement  in  people's  minds.  At  present,  Mr.  Gladstone  said, 
the  League  was  thought  to  be  a  thing  of  no  great  practical  mo- 
ment: its  parade  and  ceremonial  were  perhaps  the  most  impor- 
tant features  about  it;  but  if  Parliament  should  take  up  the 
subject,  then  assuredly  the  League  would  acquire  a  consequence 
to  which  it  had  really  no  title.  Cobden's  motion  was  rejected  by 
a  vote  of  two  hundred  and  twenty-four  against  one  hundred  and 
thirty-three,  being  a  majority  of  ninety-one. 

This  bad  division  had  perhaps  less  than  the  general  feeling  of 
the  House,  as  gathered  from  talk  in  the  lobbies,  to  do  with  the 
changed  view  which  Cobden  now  took  of  the  prospects  of  the 
cause.  The  ardor  of  his  hopes  was  relaxed,  though  not  the  firm- 
ness of  his  resolution.  He  gave  expression  to  this  in  writing  to 
his  brother :  — 

"  It  is  now  quite  certain  that  our  Free  Trade  labors  must  be 
spread  over  a  larger  space  of  time  than  we  contemplated  at  one 
time.  The  agitation  must  be  of  a  different  kind  to  what  we  have 
hitherto  pursued.  In  fact,  we  must  merely  have  just  so  many 
demonstrations  as  will  be  necessary  to  keep  hold  of  public  atten- 
tion, and  the  work  must  go  on  in  the  way  of  registration  labors  in 
those  large  constituencies  where  we  can  hope  to  gain  anything  by 
a  change  of  public  opinion.  Thedittle  pocket  boroughs  must  be 
absolutely  given  over.  They  will  not  weigh  as  a  feather  in  the 
settlement  of  the  question.  Time  can  alone  effect  the  business. 
It  cannot  be  carried  by  storm.  We  were  wrong  in  thinking  of  it. 
In  the  mean  time  Peel's  unsettlements  are  making  enemies  in  the 
ranks  of  the  united  monopolists,  and  everybody  is  making  up  his 
mind  to  more  change.  As  my  labors  must  henceforth  be  less 
intense  than  heretofore,  I  shall  be  able  to  give  more  attention  to 
my  private  affairs,  which.  Heaven  knows,  have  been  neglected 
enough."  ^ 

1  To  F.  W.  Cohden,  London,  June  4,  1844. 


/ 


198  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1844. 

The  following  passage  relates  to  a  subject  which  kindled  more 
excitement  in  the  country  than  any  other  question  before  Parlia- 
ment. It  was  an  episode  in  the  endless  battle  between  bigotry 
and  the  sense  of  justice.  The  judgment  in  the  famous  case  of 
Lady  Hewley's  bequest,  finally  delivered  after  fourteen  years  of 
litigation,  exposed  endowments  which  had  been  for  several  gener- 
ations in  the  hands  of  Unitarians,  to  the  risk  of  appropriation  by 
Trinitarian  Dissenters,  The  Ministry  brought  in  a  Bill  to  con- 
firm religious  bodies,  whether  Trinitarian  or  Unitarian,  in  the 
possession  of  property  of  which  they  had  been  in  the  enjoyment 
for  twenty  years.  This  measure  was  regarded  by  fanatics,  alike 
of  the  Episcopalian  and  the  independent  churches,  as  favoring 
the  deadly  heresy  of  Unitarianism.  The  storm  raged  with  furious 
violence ;  but  the  Ministry  held  firm,  and  the  Bill,  which  was 
conservative  of  the  rights  of  property  in  the  right  sense,  happily 
became  law.  Sir  W.  Follett's  speech  broke  down  the  opposition. 
We  may  be  sure  on  which  side  in  the  controversy  Cobden  was 
found. 

"  I  never  entertained  an  idea  of  voting  for  the  monopolists  in 
matters  of  faith.  Nor  have  I  had  a  line  from  anybody  at  Stock- 
port to  ask  me  to  do  so.  As  at  present  advised,  I  shall  certainly 
vote  for  the  Bill.  What  a  spectacle  we  shall  present,  if  the 
intolerance  of  the  Commons  should  reject  a  measure  which  the 
Lords  and  the  Bishops  have  passed !  It  would  confirm  one's 
notion  that  the  Government  of  this  country  is  in  advance  of  the 
people. 

"  Lord  Duncan's  reply  to  a  deputation  was  not  amiss.  He  told 
them  dryly,  '  It  may  be  a  question  whether  the  founders  of  the 
chapels  in  question  intended  them  for  the  benefit  of  Unitarians 
or  Trinitarians,  but  one  thing  is  certain,  they  did  not  intend  them 
for  the  lawyers,  who  will  have  every  kick  of  them,  unless  the  Bill 
is  passed  into  a  law.'  This  young  chip  of  the  old  block- who 
stood  such  hard  knocking  at  Camperdown,  said  an  equally  good 
thing  to  the  short-time  delegates  who  called  on  him  to  abuse  the 
factory  masters.  He  told  them  to  go  home  and  thank  God  they 
had  not  the  landlords  for  masters,  for  if  they  had,  their  wages 
would  be  reduced  one  half."  ^ 

It  is  now  time  to  turn  briefly  to  a  subject  which  sprang  as 
directly  as  Free  Trade  itself  from  the  great  Condition  of  England 
Question.  Throughout  this  memorable  Parliament,  which  sat 
from  1841  to  1847,  we  are  conscious  of  a  genuine  effort,  alike  on 
the  part  of  the  Prime  Minister  and  of  independent  reformers  and 
philanthropists  of  all  kinds,  to  grapple  with  a  state  of  society 

1  To  F,  W.  Cobden,  London,  June  5,  1844.    ' 


iET.40.]  FACTORY  LEGISLATION.  199 

which  threatened  to  become  unmanageable.  We  see  the  Parlia- 
ment diligently  feeling  its  way  to  one  piece  after  another  of  wise 
and  beneficent  policy,  winding  up  with  the  most  beneficent  of  all. 
The  development  of  manufactures,  and  the  increase  and  redistri- 
bution of  population  which  attended  it,  forced  upon  all  the  fore- 
most minds  of  that  time  a  group  of  difficulties  with  which  most 
of  them  were  very  inadequately  prepared  to  deal.  One  fact  will 
be  enough  to  illustrate  the  extent  of  the  change.  In  1818  it  was 
computed  that  57,000  persons  were  employed  in  cotton  factories. 
Within  twenty-one  years  their  numbers  had  increased  to  469,000. 
How  was  this  vast  and  rapid  influx  of  population  into  the  cotton 
towns,  with  all  the  new  conditions  which  it  implied,  to  be  met  ? 
Or  was  it  to  the  statesman  indifferent  ?  The  author  of  Sybil 
seems  to  have  apprehended,  the  real  magnitude  and  even  the 
nature  of  the  social  crisis.  Mr.  Disraeli's  brooding  imaginative- 
ness of  conception  gave  him  a  view  of  the  extent  of  the  social 
revolution  as  a  whole,  which  was  wider,  if  it  did  not  go  deeper, 
than  that  of  any  other  contemporary  observer.  To  accidents  of 
his  position  in  society  and  necessities  of  personal  ambition,  it 
must,  I  suppose,  be  attributed  that  one  who  conceived  so  truly 
the  seriousness  of  the  problem,  should  have  brought  nothing 
better  to  its  solution  than  the  childish  bathos  of  Young  England. 
Mr.  Carlyle,  again,  had  true  vision  of  the  changes  that  were  sweep- 
ing the  unconscious  nation  away  from  the  bonds  and  principles 
of  the  past  into  an  unknown  future.  But  he  had  no  efficient 
instruments  for  controlling  or  guiding  the  process.  He  was  right 
enough  in  declaring  that  moral  regeneration  was  the  one  thing 
needful  to  set  the  distracted  nation  at  ease.  In  a  particular  crisis, 
however,  moral  regeneration  is  no  more  than  a  phrase. 

Cobden  answered  the  question  on  the  economic  side.  You 
must,  he  said,  accept  and  establish  the  conditions  of  free  exchange. 
Only  on  these  terms  can  you  make  the  best  use  of  capital,  and 
insure  the  highest  attainable  prosperity  to  labor.  But  at  this 
point  —  they  were  then  close  upon  the  ever-memorable  date  of 
'48  —  the  gigantic  question  of  that  generation  loomed  on  the 
horizon.  How  are  you  to  settle  the  mutual  relations  of  capital  and 
labor  to  one  another  ?  Abolition  of  restriction  may  be  excellent 
in  the  sphere  of  commodities.  Is  it  so  clear  that  the  same  con- 
dition suffices  for  the  commonwealth,  when  the  commodity  to  be 
exchanged  is  a  man's  labor  ?  Or  is  it  palpably  false  and  irrational 
to  talk  of  labor  as  a  commodity  ?  In  other  words,  can  the  relations 
between  labor  and  capital  be  safely  left  to  the  unfettered  play  of 
individual  competition  ?  The  answer  of  modern  statesmanship  is, 
that  unfettered  individual  competition  is  not  a  principle  to  which 
the  regulation  of  industry  may  be  intrusted.  There  may  be  con- 
ditions which  it  is  in  the  highest  degree^  desirable  to  impose  on 


200  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1844. 

industry,  and  to  which  the  general  opinion  of  the  industrial  classes 
may  be  entirely  favorable.  Yet  the  assistance  of  law  may  be 
needed  to  give  effect  to  this  opinion,  because,  —  in  the  words  of 
the  great  man  who  was  now  preparing  the  exposition  of  political 
economy  that  was  to  reign  all  through  the  next  generation,  — 
only  law  can  afford  to  every  individual  a  guaranty  that  his  com- 
petitors will  pursue  the  same  course  as  to  hours  of  labor  and  so 
forth,  without  which  he  cannot  safely  adopt  it  himself  ^ 

Cobden,  as   we  have  already  seen  (page  78),  when  he  was 
jj  first  a  candidate  for  Stockport,  dissented  from  these  theories.    He 

I  could  not  adjust  them  to  his  general  principle  of  the  expediency 
l!  of  leaving  every  man  free  to  carry  his  goods  to  whatever  market 

I I  he  might  choose,  and  to  make  the  best  bargain  that  he  could. 
\  I  The  man  who  saw  such  good  reasons  for  distrusting  the  regulation 
J  jof  markets  by  Act  of  Parliament,  was  naturally  inclined  to  distrust 
j  I  parliamentary  regulation  of  labor.  In  the  case  of  children,  Cob- 
i   den  fully  perceived  that  freedom  of  contract  is  only  another  name 

for  freedom  of  coercion,  and  he  admitted  the  necessity  of  legisla- 
tive protection.  He  never  denied  that  restrictions  on  the  hours 
of  labor  were  desirable,  and  he  knew  by  observation,  both  at  home 
and  abroad,  that  the  hours  of  labor  are  no  measure  of  its  relative 
productiveness.  What  he  maintained  was  that  all  restrictions, 
however  desirable,  ought  to  be  secured  by  the  resolute  demands 
and  independent  action  of  the  workmen  themselves,  and  not  by 
intervention  of  the  law.  ^ 

Singularly  enough,  while  he  thus  trusted  to  the  independence 
of  the  workmen,  he  objected  to  workmen's  combinations.  "  De- 
pend upon  it,"  he  said  to  his  brother,  "  nothing  can  be  got  by  fra- 
ternizing with  trades  unions.  They  are  founded  upon  principles 
of  brutal  tyranny  and  monopoly.  I  would  rather  live  under  a 
Dey  of  Algiers  than  a  Trades  Committee."  ^  Yet  without  combi- 
nation it  is  difficult  to  see  how,  on  the  great  scale  of  modern 
industries,  the  workmen  can  exert  any  effective  influence  on  the 
regulation  of  their  labor.  That  in  the  first  forms  of  combination 
there  was  both  brutality  and  tyranny,  is  quite  true.  That  these 
vices  have  almost  disappeared  is  due  in  no  small  degree  to  an 
active  fraternization,  to  use  Cobden's  own  word,  with  the  leaders 
of  the  workmen  by  members  of  the  middle  class,  wlio  represented 
the  best  moral  and  social  elements  in  the  public  opinion  of  their 
time. 

The  protection  of  the  laboring  population  had  in  various  forms 

1  J.  S.  Mill's  Political  Economy  was  not  begun  nntil  1845,  but  it  bears  abundant 
traces  how  closely  he  watched  the  course  of  legislation  during  the  years  immediately 
preceding. 

2  See  Appendix  A,  at  the  end  of  the  volume. 
8  To  F.  W.  Cobden,  August  16,  1842. 


^T.40.]  FACTOKY  LEGISLATION.  201 

engaged  the  serious  attention  of  Parliament  for  several  years.  So 
far  back  as  1802  there  was  a  Factory  Act,  which  was  sanitary  in 
its  main  intention,  but  also  contain'bd  clauses  regulating  hours. 
Others  followed  in  1819  and  1825,  and  a  very  important  factory 
law,  containing  the  earliest  provisions  for  education,  was  passed 
in  1833,  by  which  time  the  workmen  were  partially  able  to  make 
themselves  heard  in  Parliament.  In  1842  Lord  Ashley  had  pro- 
cured the  passing  of  the  Mines  and  Collieries  Act,  a  truly  admira- 
ble and  beneficent  piece  of  legislation,  excluding  women  from 
labor  under  ground,  and  rescuing  children  from  conditions  hardly 
less  horrible  than  those  of  negro  slavery.  In  1843,  still  under 
the  impulse  of  Lord  Ashley,  Sir  James  Graham  brought  in  a  Fac- 
tory Bill,  not  only  regulating  the  hours  of  labor,  but  proposing  a 
system  for  the  education  of  the  children  of  the  industrial  class  in 
the  manufacturing  towns.  Cobden  took  an  early  opportunity  of  / 
saying  a  friendly  word  for  the  education  clauses  of  the  measure,  as'' 
being  a  step  in  the  right  direction.  Popular  education  had  been 
the  most  important  of  all  social  objects  in  his  mind  from  the  first ; 
and  in  spite  of  drawbacks,  which  he  did  not  despair  of  seeing 
amended,  he  saw  more  good  than  harm  in  the  new  proposals. 
These  clauses,  however,  beyond  doubt  conferred  advantages  on  the 
Established  Church,  in  which  the  Dissenters  justly  and  wisely 
refused  to  acquiesce.^  It  might  well  seem  to  be  better  that  pop- 
ular instruction  should  still  be  left  to  voluntary  machinery  for 
some  time  longer,  than  that  new  authority  and  new  fields  of  eccle- 
siastical control  should  be  opened  to  the  privileged  church.  The 
opposition  was  so  vehement  that  the  education  clauses  were 
dropped,  and  the  Bill  withdrawn. 

In  1844  Sir  James  Graham  reintroduced  it,  without  the  educa- 
tion clauses,  simply  as  a  Bill  for  regulating  the  labor  of  children 
and  young  persons.  The  definition  of  a  child  was  extended  to 
mean  children  between  nine  and  thirteen ;  a  child  was  only  to  be 
employed  half  time,  that  is  to  say,  not  more  than  six  and  a  half 
hours  each  day.  The  definition  of  young  persons  remained  as  it 
was,  covering  persons  from  thirteen  to  eighteen ;  their  hours  in 
silk,  cotton,  wool,  and  flax  manufactories  were  not  to  exceed  thir- 
teen and  a  half  in  each  day  ;  and  of  these  one  hour  and  a  half  were 
to  be  allowed  for  meals  and  rest,  leaving  twelve  hours  as  the  limit 
of  actual  labor.  Lord  Ashley  moved  that  the  hours  should  be 
not  twelve  but  ten,  and  on  this  issue  the  battle  was  fought.  The 
factory  question  from  this  time,  down  to  the  passing  of  the  Ten 
Hours  Act,  was  part  of  the  wider  struggle  between  the  country 
gentlemen  and  the  manufacturers.     The  Tories  were  taunted  with 

1  The  provisions  for  trustees  of  the  schools  were  undeniably  and  deliberately 
calculated  to  give  the  clergy  of  the  Established  Church  a  predominant  power  on 
every  board. 


V 


202  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1844. 

the  condition  of  the  laborers  in  the  fields,  and  they  retorted  by 
tales  of  the  condition  of  the  operatives  in  factories.  The  manu- 
facturers rejoined  by  asking,  if  they  were  so  anxious  to  benefit  the 
"workman,  why  they  did  not,  by  repealing  the  Corn  Law,  cheapen 
his  bread,  ^he  landlords  and  the  mill-owners  each  reproached  the 
other  with  exercising  the  virtues  of  humanity  at  other  people's 
expense.  This  was  not  Lord  Ashley's  own  position.  He  was  at 
this  time  in  favor  of  the  Corn  Law,  but  his  exertions  for  the  fac- 
tory population  were  due  to  a  disinterested  and  genuine  interest 
in  their  welfare.  In  1842  ^  Cobden  took  a  more  generous,  or 
rather  a  more  just,  view  of  Lord  Ashley's  character  than  he  had 
been  accustomed  to  express  in  his  letters  and  conversation.  "  He 
would  confess  very  frankly  that  before  he  entered  that  House,  he 
had  entertained  doubts,  in  common  with  many  of  the  employers 
in  the  north,  whether  those  advocates  of  the  Short  Hours  Bill 
who  supported  the  Corn  Law  were  really  sincere.  But  since  he 
had  had  an  opportunity  of  a  closer  observation  of  the  noble  lord, 
he  was  perfectly  convinced  of  his  genuine  philanthropy."  That, 
however,  was  no  reason  why  Lord  Ashley  should  not  be  resisted, 
if  his  philanthropy  led  him  wrong ;  and  Mr.  Bright,  while  not 
denying  that  the  hours  of  labor  were  longer  than  they  ought  to  be, 
made  a  vigorous  onslaught  on  him.  "  It  was  a  perilous  effort," 
Cobden  wrote,  "  especially  in  the  canting  tone  of  the  country,  but 
our  friend  came  off  well,  and  there  is  much  credit  due  to  him  for 
taking  the  bull  by  the  horns.  The  Tories  have  gained  nothing 
by  the  last  week's  debate."  ^ 

Charles  Buller  defended  Lord  Ashley's  proposal  in  what  was  a 
very  wise  speech,  though  it  may  have  been  made  as  a  party  move 
against  Peel.  Brougham  poured  out  a  torrent  of  invective  in  the 
House  of  Lords  against  all  interference  with  labor.  Most  of  the 
official  Whigs,  on  the  contrary,  went  for  the  limitation  of  ten 
hours,  though  they  had  stoutly  opposed  the  same  proposal  when 
they  were  in  power ;  but  in  the  end  the  Government  carried  their 
Act  for  twelve  hours. 

"  I  did  not  vote  upon  the  Factory  question,"  Cobden  wrote. 
''  The  fact  is  the  Government  are  being  whipped  with  a  ro.d  of 
their  own  pickling.  They  used  the  ten  hours  cry,  and  all  other 
cries,  to  get  into  power,  and  now  they  find  themselves  unable  to 
lay  the  devil  they  raised  for  the  destruction  of  the  Whigs.  Tlie 
trickery  of  the  Government  was  kept  up  till  the  time  of  Ashley's 
motion,  in  the  confident  expectation  that  he  would  be  defeated  by 
the  Whigs  and  Free  Traders.  They  (the  Government)  were  cal- 
culating upon  this  support,  and  so  they  gave  liberty  to  Wortley 
and  others  of  their  party  to  vote  against  the  Cabinet  in  order  to 

1  July  8.  2  j^o  F^  w,  Cobden,  London,  March  16,  1844. 


^T.40.]  FACTORY   LEGISLATION.  203 

get  favor  at  the  hustings.  The  Whigs  very  basely  turned  round 
upon  their  former  opinions  to  spite  the  Tories.  The  only  good 
result  is  that  no  Government  or  party  will  in  future  like  to  use 
the  factory  question  for  a  cry.  The  last  year's  education  ques- 
tion, and  this  year's  ten  hours  Bill,  will  sicken  the  factions  of  such 
a  two-edged  weapon.  One  other  good  effect  may  be  that  men 
like  Graham  and  Peel  will  see  the  necessity  of  taking  anchor 
upon  some  sound  principles,  as  a  refuge  from  the  Socialist  doc- 
trines of  the  fools  behind  them.  But  at  all  events  good  must 
come  out  of  such  startling  discussions."  ^ 

It  cannot  be  seriously  denied  that  Cobden  was  fully  justified  in 
describing  the  tendencies  of  this  legislation  as  socialistic.  It  wa»y 
an  exertion  of  the  power  of  the  State  in  its  strongest  form,  defi- 
nitely limiting  in  the  interest  of  the  laborer  the  administration  of 
capital.  The  Act  of  1844  was  only  a  rudimentary  step  in  this  ^ 
direction.  In  1847  the  Ten  Hours  Bill  became  law.  Cobden 
was  abroad  at  the  time,  and  took  no  part  in  its  final  stages.  In 
the  thirty  years  that  followed,  the  principle  has  been  extended 
with  astonishing  perseverance.  We  have  to-day  a  complete, 
minute,  and  voluminous  code  for  the  protection  of  labor ;  build- 
ings must  be  kept  pure  of  effluvia ;  dangerous  machinery  must  be 
fenced ;  children  and  young  persons  must  not  clean  it  while  in 
motion ;  their  hours  are  not  only  limited  but  fixed ;  continuous 
employment  must  not  exceed  a  given  number  of  hours,  varying 
with  the  trade,  but  prescribed  by  the  law  in  given  cases  ;  a  stat- 
utable number  of  holidays  is  imposed ;  the  children  must  go  to 
school,  and  the  employer  must  every  week  have  a  certificate  to 
that  effect ;  if  an  accident  happens,  notice  must  be  sent  to  the 
proper  authorities ;  special  provisions  are  made  for  bakehouses, 
for  lace-making,  for  collieries,  and  for  a  whole  schedule  of  other 
special  callings ;  for  the  due  enforcement  and  vigilant  supervision 
of  this  immense  host  of  minute  prescriptions,  there  is  an  immense 
host  of  inspectors,  certifying  surgeons,  and  other  authorities,  whose 
business  it  is  "  to  speed  and  post  o'er  land  and  ocean  "  in  restless 
guardianship  of  every  kind  of  labor,  from  that  of  the  woman  who 
plaits  straw  at  her  cottage  door,  to  the  miner  who  descends  into 
the  bowels  of  the  earth,  and  the  seaman  who  conveys  the  fruits 
and  materials  of  universal  industry  to  and  fro  between  the  remot- 
est parts  of  the  globe.  But  all  this  is  one  of  the  largest  branches 
of  what  the  most  importunate  Socialists  have  been  accustomed  to 
demand  ;  and  if  we  add  to  this  vast  fabric  of  Labor  legislation  our 
system  of  Poor  Law,  we  find  the  rather  amazing  result  that  in  the 
country  where  Socialism  has  been  less  talked  about  than  any 

1  To  F.  W.  Cohden,  March  23,  1844. 


204  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1844. 

other  country  in  Europe,  its  principles  have  been  most  exten- 
sively applied. 

If  the  Factory  Law  was  in  one  sense  a  weapon  with  which  the 
/  country  party  harassed  the  manufacturers,  it  was  not  long  before 
^  Cobden  hit  upon  a  plan  for  retaliating.  For  two  or  three  years 
the  League  had  confined  its  operations  to  the  creation  of  an  en- 
lightened public  opinion  on  the  subject  of  the  Corn  Laws.  Then 
it  began  to  work  in  the  boroughs,  and  Cobden  was  able  to  say 
that  never  at  any  previous  date  had  so  much  systematic  attention, 
time,  and  labor  been  given  to  the  boroughs  in  the  way  of  regis- 
tration. The  power  which  had  thus  been  given  to  the  Free  Trade 
party  in  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  boroughs,  was  expected  to 
make  an  immense,  if  not  a  decisive,  difference  in  the  next  Par- 
liament. In  the  great  county  of  Lancashire  alone,  such  changes 
had  been  wrought  by  attention  to  the  register,  that  it  was  calcu- 
lated that  a  new  election  would  only  leave  the  monopolists  five 
out  of  the  six-and-twenty  members  for  the  entire  province.  It 
now  occurred  to  Cobden  that  these  constituencies  could  be  dealt 
with  even  more  effectually.  In  the  last  division,  not  a  single 
county  member  had  gone  into  the  lobby  with  Mr.  Villiers.  Cob- 
den's  thought  was  to  turn  the  counties  by  an  indefinite  increase 
of  the  constituencies.  They  were  to  be  won  through  that  section 
of  the  Eeform  Act  which  conferred  the  franchise  in  counties  upon 
possessors  of  freehold  property  of  the  value  of  forty  sliillings  a 
year.  The  landlords  had  already  availed  themselves  to  an  im- 
mense extent  of  the  Chandos  clause.  By  the  Chandos  clause  ten- 
ants at  will,  occupying  at  a  yearly  value  of  fifty  pounds,  had  the 
franchise.  The  monopolists,  in  Cobden's  words,  worked  this 
clause  out ;  they  applied  themselves  to  qualifying  their  tenant- 
farmers  for  the  poll,  "  by  making  brothers,  sons,  nephews,  uncles 
—  ay,  down  to  the  third  generation,  if  they  happened  to  live  upon 
the  farm  —  all  qualify  for  the  same  holding,  and  swear,  if  need  be, 
that  they  were  partners  in  the  farm,  though  they  were  no  more 
partners  than  you  are.  This  they  did,  and  successfully,  and  by  that 
means  gained  the  counties."  "But,"  Cobden  continued,  "there 
was  another  clause  in  the  Eeform  Act,  which  we  of  the  middle 
classes  —  the  unprivileged,  industrious  men,  who  live  by  our  capi- 
tal and  labor — never  found  out,  namely,  the  forty-shilling  free- 
hold clause.     I  will  set  that  against  the  Chandos  clause,  and  we 

will  beat  them  in  the  counties  with  it There  is  a  large 

class  of  mechanics  who  save  their  forty  or  fifty  pounds ;  they  have 
been  accustomed  perhaps  to  put  it  in  the  savings'  bank.  I  will 
not  say  a  word  to  undervalue  that  institution ;  but  cottage  prop- 
erty will  pay  twice  as  much  interest  as  the  savings'  bank.  Then 
what  a  privilege  it  is  for  a  man  to  put  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 


~v/ 


iET.40.]  THE   CONSTITUENCIES.  205 

and  walk  up  and  down  opposite  his  own  freehold,  and  say,  '  This 
is  my  own ;  I  worked  for  it,  and  I  have  won  it.'  There  are  many 
fathers  who  have  sons  just  ripening  into  maturity,  and  I  know 
that  parents  are  very  apt  to  keep  their  property  and  the  state  of 
their  affairs  from  their  children.  My  doctrine  is  that  you  cannot 
give  your  son  your  confidence,  or  teach  him  to  be  intrusted  with 
property,  too  early.  When  you  have  a  son  just  coming  to  twenty- 
one  years  of  age,  the  best  thing  you  can  do,  if  you  have  it  in  your 
power,  is  to  give  him  a  qualification  for  the  county ;  it  accustoms 
him  to  the  use  of  property,  and  to  the  exercise  of  a  vote,  whilst 
you  are  living  and  can  have  some  little  judicious  control  over  it 
if  necessary."  ^ 

The  reader  will  observe  that  Cobden's  design  was  free  from  the 
sinister  quality  of  manufactured  voting.  He  supposed  that  men 
would  acquire  property  in  their  own  neighborhood,  the  natural 
seat  of  their  political  interests  and  activity.  What  is  politically 
mischievous  in  this  franchise  only  happens  when  a  number  of 
strangers  in  possession  of  a  factitious  qualification  invade  a  dis- 
trict and  help  to  nullify  the  wishes  and  opinions  of  the  majority 
of  those  who  reside  in  it.  Such  a  practice  as  this  seems  at  no 
time  to  have  been  in  Cobden's  contemplation.  Still  many  people 
demurred.  The  plan  wore  the  look  of  manufacturing  votes ;  it 
seemed,  they  said,  mechanical,  unworthy,  and  barely  legitimate. 
No,  replied  Cobden,  there  is  nothing  savoring  of  trick  or  finesse 
of  any  kind  in  it ;  the  law  and  the  constitution  prescribe  the 
condition;  you  have  a  hond-fide  qualification,  and  are  conforming 
to  the  law  both  in  spirit  and  in  fact.  This  was  quite  true,  and 
no  plan  ever  proposed  by  the  League  met  with  so  unanimous  a 
response  from  all  parts  of  the  kingdom.  It  took  two  hours  a  day 
to  read  the  letters  that  came  from  every  part  of  the  country,  all 
applauding  the  scheme.  By  the  beginning  of  1845  between  four 
and  five  thousand  new  electors  had  been  brought  upon  the  lists 
in  Yorkshire,  Lancashire,  and  Cheshire.  Not  less  than  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  pounds  were  invested  in  these  counties 
in  the  forty-shilling  qualification.  It  was  believed  that  eight  or 
ten  times  as  many  persons  in  other  parts  of  the  country  had 
taken  Cobden's  hint  to  qualify. 

It  was  to  be  an  immense  enfranchisement,  on  old  constitutionally 
lines  and  secured  by  the  spontaneous  effort  and  civil  spirit  of  the  / 
population  itself  "  Wherever  there  is  a  man  above  the  rank  of 
an  unskilled  laborer,  whether  a  shopkeeper,  a  man  of  the  middle 
class,  or  of  the  skilled  working  class,  that  has  not  got  a  county 
vote,  or  is  not  striving  to  accumulate  enough  to  get  one,  let  us 
point  the  finger  of  scorn  at  him  ;  he  is  not  fit  to  be  a  freeman.    It 


Speech  at  Covent  Garden,  Dec.  l\,J^^m/i^^    ^  '  "^>f^ 

/^    ^  OF   TUE  'A' 

UNIVERSIT7 


.^<t  W* 


206  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1845. 

is  an  avenue  by  which  we  may  reach  the  recesses  of  power,  and 
possess  ourselves  of  any  constitutional  rights  which  we  are  entitled 
to  possess."  In  one  of  his  speeches  of  that  date,  Cobden  allowed 
it  to  be  perceived  that  this  great  process  had  come  into  his  mind 
not  simply  as  a  means  of  quickening  the  triumph  of  Free  Trade, 
but  as  an  agency  for  effecting  a  deep  and  permanent  political 
transformation.  "  Some  people,"  he  said,  "  tell  you  that  it  is  very 
dangerous  and  unconstitutional  to  invite  people  to  enfranchise 
themselves  by  buying  a  freehold  qualification.  I  say,  without 
being  revolutionary,  or  boasting  of  being  more  democratic  than 
others,  that  the  sooner  the  power  in  this  country  is  transferred 
from  the  landed  oligarchy,  which  has  so  misused  it,  and  is  placed 
absolutely  —  mind,  I  say  absolutely  —  in  the  hands  of  the  intelli- 
gent middle  and  industrious  classes,  the  better  for  the  condition 
and  destinies  of  this  country."  ^ 

Cobden's  eloquent  colleague,  Fox,  placed  the  movement  deeper 
still,  by  dwelling  on  the  moral  elements  that  lay  beneath  it.  If 
it  was  wise  and  good,  he  said,  to  endeavor  to  make  all  who  could 
save  their  pittance  become  fundholders,  it  must  be  at  least  as 
prudent  and  just  to  induce  them  according  to  their  proportion  to 
become  landholders  also — joint  shareholders  in  this  lovely  and 
fruitful  country,  which  is  their  country  as  much  as  it  is  that  of  the 
wealthiest  nobleman  whose  lands  cover  half  a  county.  It  would 
give  them  a  tangible  bond  of  connection  with  society ;  it  would 
put  them  in  a  position  which  was  deemed  necessary  to  citizenship 
in  the  republics  of  ancient  days  ;  and  it  was  better  adapted  than 
anything  else  to  cherish  in  them  those  emotions  which  best  ac- 
cord with  consistency  and  dignity  of  character. 


CHAPTEE  XIV. 

BASTIAT  —  NEW  TACTICS  —  ACTIVITY  IN   PARLIAMENT  —  MAYNOOTH 
GRANT — PRIVATE   AFFAIRS. 

It  was  in  this  year  that  Cobden  made  the  acquaintance  of 
a  French  thinker  who  has  done  more  than  any  other  of  his  coun- 
J  trymen  to  give  vivid  and  imaginative  color  to  the  principles 
which  in  England  we  usually  call  Cobden's.  Bastiat  was  born  in 
1806.  He  lived  on  a  meagre  ancestral  property  on  the  banks 
of  the  Adour,  in  the  remote  obscurity  of  the  Landes.  For  twenty 
years  he  had  been  almost  solitary  among  his  farms,  studying  the 

1  Speeches,  i.  256.     Jan.  15,  1845. 


Mt.  41.]  BASTIAT.  207 

great  economic  writers,  discussing  them  from  time  to  time  with 
the  only  friend  he  had,  occasionally  making  a  short  journey,  and 
always  practising  what  Kousseau  calls  that  rarest  kind  of  philoso- 
phy which  consists  in  observing  what  we  see  every  day.  By 
chance  he  fell  on  an  English  newspaper.  He  was  amazed  to  find 
that  a  body  of  practical  men  in  England  were  at  the  moment^ 
actually  engaged,  and  engaged  with  the  reasonable  prospect  of 
success,  in  pressing  for  that  Free  Trade  of  which  he  had  only 
dared  to  dream  as  a  triumph  of  reason  possible  in  some  distant 
future.  For  two  years  he  watched  the  progress  of  the  agitation 
with  eager  interest.  As  was  natural,  what  he  saw  rapidly  stirred 
in  him  a  lively  desire  for  a  similar  illumination  in  his  own  coun- 
try. He  sat  down  to  write  an  account  of  the  English  movement. 
In  the  summer  of  1845  he  went  to  Paris  to  see  his  book  through 
the  press.  With  his  long  hair  and  unfashionable  hat,  his  rustic 
clothes  and  homely  umbrella,  he  had  the  air  of  an  honest  coun- 
tryman come  to  see  the  marvels  of  the  town.  But  there  was  a 
look  of  thought  on  his  square  brow,  a  light  in  his  full  dark  eye, 
and  a  keenness  in  his  expression,  which  told  people  that  they 
were  dealing  with  an  enthusiast  and  a  man  of  ideas.  Bastiat 
took  the  opportunity  of  being  in  Paris  to  push  on  to  London, 
there  to  behold  with  his  own  eyes  the  men  who  had  so  long 
excited  his  wonder  and  his  admiration.  He  hastened  to  the 
office  of  the  League,  with  copies  of  his  book  in  his  hand.  "  They 
told  me,"  he  wrote  to  his  friend,  "  that  Cobden  was  on  the  point 
of  starting  for  Manchester,  and  that  he  was  most  likely  preparing 
for  the  journey  at  that  moment.  An  Englishman's  preparation 
consists  of  swallowing  a  beefsteak  and  thrusting  two  shirts  into 
a  carpet-bag.  I  hurried  to  Cobden's  house,  where  I  found  him, 
and  we  had  a  conversation  which  lasted  for  two  hours.  He  un- 
derstands French  very  well,  speaks  it  a  little,  and  I  understand  his 
English.  I  explained  the  state  of  opinion  in  France,  the  results 
that  I  expect  from  my  book,  and  so  on."  Cobden  in  short  re- 
ceived him  with  his  usual  cordiality,  told  him  that  the  League 
was  a  sort  of  free-masonry,  that  he  ought  to  take  up  his  quarters 
at  the  hotel  of  the  League,  and  to  spend  his  evenings  there  in 
listening  to  the  fireside  talk  of  Mr.  Bright  and  the  rest  of  the  band. 
A  day  or  two  afterwards,  at  Cobden's  solicitation,  Bastiat  went 
down  to  Manchester.  His  wonder  at  the  ingenious  methods 
and  the  prodigious  scale  of  the  League  increased  with  all  that 
he  saw.  His  admiration  for  Cobden  as  a  public  leader  grew  into 
hearty  affection  for  him  as  a  private  friend,  and  tliis  friendship 
became  one  of  the  chief  delights  of  the  few  busy  years  of  life  that 
remained  to  him. 

There  had  never  been  any  anxiety  among  the  men  of  the 
League  to  stir  foreign  opinion.     "  We  came  to  the  conclusion,"  / 


208  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1845. 

Cobden  said,  "  that  the  less  we  attempted  to  persuade  foreigners 
to  adopt  our  trade  principles,  the  better;  for  we  discovered  so 
much  suspicion  of  the  motives  of  England,  that  it  was  lending  an 
argument  to  the  protectionists  abroad  to  incite  the  popular  feel- 
ing against  the  Free  Traders,  by  enabling  them  to  say  — '  See 
what  these  men  are  wanting  to  do :  they  are  partisans  of  English- 
men, and  they  are  seeking  to  prostrate  our  industries  at  the  feet 
of  that  perfidious  nation.'  ....  To  take  away  this  pretence  we 
avowed  our  total  indifference  whether  other  nations  became  free 
traders  or  not:  but  we  should  abolish  Protection  for  our  own 
sakes,  and  leave  other  countries  to  take  whatever  course  the}^ 
liked  best."  ^  When  Bastiat  came  to  the  work  of  agitation  in  his 
own  country,  he  found  all  the  difficulties  that  his  friends  of  the 
League  had  foreseen. 

His  book,  Cobden  et  la  Ligue,  came  gradually  into  greater 
vogue  as  the  movement  grew  more  important,  and  when  the  hour 
of  triumph  came  in  England,  Bastiat  shared  its  glory  in  France, 
as  one  who  had  foreseen  its  importance  at  a  time  when  no 
French  newspaper  had  been  courageous  or  intelligent  enough  to 
give  its  readers  any  information  on  a  subject  which  was  necessa- 
rily so  unwelcome  in  a  country  of  monopolies.  Bastiat  felt  that 
the  title  of  his  book  had  perhaps  wounded  some  of  Cobden's 
fellow-workers,  and  among  men  less  strenuous  and  single-minded 
he  might  have  been  right.  He  defended  himself  by  the  reflection 
that  in  France,  and  perhaps  we  are  not  very  different  in  England, 
it  is  necessary  that  a  doctrine  should  be  personified  in  an  individ- 
ual. A  great  movement,  he  said,  must  be  summed  up  in  a  proper 
name.  Without  the  imposing  figure  of  O'Connell  the  agita- 
tion in  Ireland  would  have  passed  without  notice  in  the  French 
journals.  "  The  human  mind,"  he  wrote  to  Cobden,  "  has  need 
of  flags,  banners,  incarnations,  proper  names;  and  this  is  more 
true  in  France  than  anywhere  else.  Who  knows  that  your  career 
may  not  excite  the  emulation  of  some  man  of  genius  in  this 
country  ?  '*  ^ 

Bastiat  was  always  conscious  of  the  difference  between  Cobden's 
gifts  and  his  own,  and  nobody  knew  better  than  himself  how 
mucli  more  fit  he  was  for  a  life  of  speculation  than  for  the  career 
of  an  agitator.  But  there  was  no  one  else  in  France  to  begin  the 
work  of  propagandism  and  the  organization  of  opinion.  Cobden 
told  him  that  the  movement  which  had  been  made  from  those 
below  to  those  above  in  England,  ought  in  France  to  proceed  in  the 
opposite  course.  There  they  would  do  best  to  begin  at  the  top. 
In  France  in  1846  they  had  scarcely  any  railways,  and  they  had 
no  penny  postage.     They  were  not  accustomed  to  subscriptions, 

1  Cobden  to  Mr.  Van  der  Maeren.     Oct.  5,  1856. 
*  Dec.- 1845.     (Euv.  i.  117. 


iET.41.]  BASTIAT.  209 

and  still  less  were  they  accustomed  to  great  public  meetings. 
Worse  than  all  this,  the  popular  interest  was  at  that  epoch  turned 
away  from  the'  received  doctrines  of  political  economy  in  the 
direction  of  Communism  and  Fourierism.  These  systems  spoke 
a  language  infinitely  more  attractive  to  the  imagination  of  the 
common  people.  Bastiat,  fired  by  Cobden's  example,  set  bravely 
to  work  to  make  converts  among  men  of  mark.  Besides  being 
a  serious  thinker,  he  had  the  gifts,  always  so  valuable  in  France, 
of  irony,  of  apt  and  humorous  illustration,  of  pungent  dialectic. 
The  style  and  finish  of  the  Economic  Sophisms,  in  which  he  re- 
futed the  fallacies  of  Monopoly,  are  even  declared  to  be  worthy 
of  the  author  of  the  Provincial  Litters.  But  the  movement  did  v/ 
not  prosper.  At  Bordeaux,  indeed,  where  the  producers  of  wine 
w^ere  eager  for  fresh  markets,  a  free  trade  association  was  formed, 
and  it  throve.  Elsewhere  the  cause  made  little  way.  Political 
differences  ran  so  high  as  to  prevent  hearty  co-operation  on  a 
purely  economical  platform.  The  newspapers  were  written  by 
lads  of  twenty,  with  the  ignorance  and  the  recklessness  proper  to 
their  age.  They  were  conducted  by  men  who  were  in  close  con- 
nection with  the  politicians,  so  that  everything  in  their  hands 
became  a  question  between  Ministry  and  Opposition.  Worst  of 
all  they  were  venal.  Prejudice,  error,  and  calumny  were  paid  for 
by  the  line.  One  was  sold  to  the  Kussians,  another  to  Protec- 
tion, this  to  the  university,  that  to  the  bank.  "  Our  agitation/* 
Bastiat  wrote  to  Cobden,  "  agitates  very  little.  We  still  need  a 
man  of  action.  When  will  he  arise  ?  I  cannot  tell.  I  ought  to 
be  that  man ;  I  am  urged  to  the  part  by  the  unanimous  confidence 
of  my  colleagues,  but  I  cannot.  The  character  is  not  there,  and 
all  the  advice  in  the  world  cannot  make  an  oak  out  of  a  reed."  ^ 
We  know  not  what  encouragement  Cobden  gave  to  his  friend, 
for  by  an  evil  chance  his  letters  to  Bastiat  were  all  destroyed. 
Their  correspondence  was  tolerably  constant,  and  if  Bastiat  was 
indebted  to  Cobden  for  the  energy  of  his  views  on  Free  Trade, 
Cobden  may  well  have  had  his  own  views  strengthened  and  diver- 
sified by  Bastiat's  keen  and  active  logic.  Bastiat  always  said  that 
he  valued  the  spirit  of  free  exchange  more  than  free  exchange 
itself,  and  Cobden  had  already  been  approaching  this  doctrine 
before  Bastiat  became  his  friend. 

The  League  was  now  in  the  seventh  year  of  its  labors.  In 
1839  their  subscriptions  had  only  reached  what  afterwards  seemed 
the  modest  amount  of  5000/.  The  following  year  they  rose  to 
nearly  8000Z.  In  1843  the  Council  asked  for  50,000Z.  and  got  it 
In  1 844  they  asked  for  twace  as  much,  and  by  the  end  of  the  year 

1  Bastiat  to  Cobden.     March  20  and  April  20,  1847.     (Euv.  i.  156-159. 

14 


\/ 


210  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1845. 

between  80,000Z.  and  90,000/.  had  been  paid  in.     They  were  now 
spending  1000/.  a  week.     In  spite  of  the  activity  which  was  in- 
volved in  these  profuse  supplies,  the  outlook  of  the  cause  was, 
perhaps,  never  less  hopeful  or  encouraging.     The  terrible  depres- 
sion which  had  at  first  given  so  poignant  an  impulse  to  the  agita- 
tion had  vanished.     Peel's  great  manipulation  of  the  tariff  had 
done  something  to  bring  about  a  revival  of  trade.     Much  more 
had  been  done  by  two  magnificent  harvests.     Wheat,  which  had 
ibeen  up  at  sixty-seven  shillings  when  Cobden  came  into  Parlia- 
Oment,  and  then  at  sixty-one  shillings  in  1843,  was  now  down  at 
^forty-five.      Trade  and  commerce  were   thriving.      The  revenue 
]was  flourishing.    Pauperism  had  declined.    The  winter  had  lasted 
jfor  five  months  and  had  been  very  rigorous,  yet  even  the  agricul- 
Itural  laborers  had  suffered  less  distress  than  in  the  winters  before. 
This  happy  state  of  things  was  in  fact  a  demonstration  of  the 
truth  of  what  Cobden  and  his  friends  were  struggling  to  impress 
upon  the  country,  namely,  that  a  moderate  price  of  food  was  a 
condition  of  good  wages  and  brisk  trade.^     The  plain  inference 
\from  what  had  been  going  on  for  two  years  before  men's  eyes, 
'was  that  every  impediment  in  the  way  of  abundant  food  was  an 
impediment  in  the  way  both  of  the  comfort  of  the  population  and 
the  prosperity  of  national  industry.      What  good  harvests  had 
.  done  for  two  years,  repeal  of  the  Corn  Law  would  help  to  do  in 
/  perpetuity.    "  The  present  state  of  our  finances  and  manufactures," 
'  said  Cobden,  at  the  beginning  of  1845,  "is  an  illustration  of  the 
truth  of  the  Free  Trade  doctrines."     Yet  oddly  enough,  the  very 
circumstances  which  showed  that  the  Leaguers  were  right,  made 
people  for  the  moment  less  in  earnest  for  the  success  of  their 
programme.     So  long  as  times  were  good,  the  Ministers  were  safe 
and  the  League  was  powerless.     Meetings  were  still  thronged, 
and  a  great  bazaar  was  opened  at  Covent  Garden  in  the  spring, 

1  At  a  meeting  held  in  Oldham,  a  workman  got  up  in  the  body  of  the  hall.  He 
had  been  thinking,  he  said,  on  the  subject  of  the  Corn  Laws  for  twenty  years  ;  as 
there  was  no  possibility  that  he  should  ever  see  Sir  Robert  Peel,  as  he  never  came 
down  into  that  neighborhood,  and  as  he,  the  speaker,  could  not  bear  the  expense  of 
a  journey  to  London,  he  begged  Mr.  Cobden  to  convey  to  the  Prime  Minister  the 
following  train  of  thought  :  —  "  When  provisions  are  high,  the  people  have  so  much 
to  pay  for  them  that  they  have  little  or  nothing  left  to  buy  clothes  with  ;  and  when 
they  have  little  to  buy  clothes  with,  few  clothes  are  sold  ;  and  when  there  are  few 
clothes  sold,  there  are  too  many  to  sell ;  and  when  there  are  too  many  to  sell,  they 
are  very  cheap  ;  and  when  they  are  very  cheap,  there  cannot  be  much  paid  for 
making  them  ;  and  consequently  the  manufacturing  workingman's  wages  are  re- 
duced, the  mills  are  shut  up,  business  is  ruined,  and  general  distress  is  spread 
through  the  country.  But  when  as  now  the  workingman  has  the  said  25s.  [the 
fall  in  the  price  of  wheat]  left  in  his  pocket,  he  buys  more  clothing  with  it,  ay,  and 
other  articles  of  comfort  too,  and  that  increases  the  demand  i'or  them,  and  the 
greater  the  demand,  you  know,  makes  them  rise  in  price,  and  the  rising  in  price 
enables  the  workingman  to  get  higher  wages  and  the  master  better  profits.  This 
therefore  is  the  way  I  prove  that  high  provisions  make  lower  wages,  and  cheap  pro- 
visions make  higher  wages."  —  Quoted  in  Cobden's  S})eeches,  i.  251. 


jEt.41.]  new  tactics.  211 

which  was  a  nine  days'  wonder.      This  notwithstanding,  there 
was  a  certain  pause  out  of  doors  in  the  actuality  of  the  struggle. 

The  change  did  not  escape  the  acute  observation  of  the  League. 
They  at  once  altered  their  tactics.  The  previous  year  had  been 
devoted  to  agitation  in  the  country.  They  now  came  round  to 
the  opinion  that  Parliament,  after  all,  was  the  best  place  in  which 
to  agitate.  "  You  speak  with  a  loud  voice,"  said  Cobden,  "  when 
you  are  talking  on  the  floor  of  the  House ;  and  if  you  have  any- 
thing to  say  that  hits  hard,  it  is  a  very  long  whip  and  reaches  all 
over  the  kingdom."  It  was  in  Parliament  that  they  were  best  / 
able  to  conduct  an  assault  on  the  Monopolist  citadel  from  a  new 
side.  They  had  tried  in  their  short  campaign  to  show  the  farmers 
themselves  that  Protection  was  no  better  for  them  than  for  otlier 
people.  They  now  made  a  vigorous  effort  to  bring  the  same  thing 
home  to  the  farmers'  friends  in  Parliament.  "  It  gives  me  in- 
creased hopes,"  Cobden  wrote  to  his  friend,  George  Combe,  "  to 
hear  that  you,  who  are  a  calm  observer,  think  that  we  are  making 
such  rapid  progress  in  our  agitation.  We  who  are  in  the  whirl  of 
it  can  hardly  form  an  opinion  whether  we  are  advancing  or  only 
revolving.  But  I  think  there  are  symptoms  that  the  enemy  is  ^ 
preparing  for  a  retreat.  The  squires  in  the  House  are  evidently 
without  confidence  in  themselves,  while  the  farmers  are  losing  all 
faith  in  their  old  protectors,  and  Peel  is  doing  his  best  to  shake 
the  confidence  of  both  landlords  and  tenants  in  any  minister. 
Good  will  come  out  of  this.  People  will  be  thrown  back  upon 
their  own  resources  of  judgment.  In  fact,  the  public  will  be 
taught  to  think  for  themselves.  With  respect  to  Mr.  W.,  he  and 
I  are  very  friendly ;  I  have  had  nothing  but  civility,  and  indeed 
kindness,  at  his  hands  ever  since  I  came  into  the  House.  He  is 
a  man  of  very  great  kindness  of  nature,  full  of  honlwmie  in  fact. 
If  he  has  a  fault,  it  is  in  being  too  placable,  possessing  too  much 
love  of  approbation,  which  makes  him  rather  fond  of  praising 
people,  especially  his  opponents.  He  is,  however,  upon  the  whole, 
a  fine-hearted  man."  ^ 

In  the  midst  of  the  general  prosperity,  there  was  one   great   y 
interest  which  did  not  thrive  :  this  was  the  interest  of  the  tenant-  ^ 
farmer.     Deputations  waited  upon  the  Prime  Minister  to  tell  liim 
that  the  farmers  in  Norfolk  were  paying  rent  out  of  capital ;  that 
half  the  small  farmers  in  Devonshire  were  insolvent,  and   the 
others  were  rapidly  sinking  to  the  same  condition ;  that  the  agri- 
culturists of  the  whole  of  the  south  of  England,  from  the  Trent  to  / 
the  Land's  End,  were  in  a  state  of  embarrassment  and  distress.^ 
There  was  scarcely  a  week  in  which  these  topics  did  not  find  their 
way  into  the  Parliamentary  debates.     Cobden  brought  forward  a 

1  To  George  Combe.     London,  Feb.  23,  1845.        2  Cobden's  Speeches,  i.  261. 


212  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1845. 

motion  for  a  Select  Committee  to  inquire  into  the  causes  of  the 
alleged  agricultural  distress.  A  few  nights  afterwards  one  of  the 
country  gentlemen  in  the  House  moved  a  resolution  for  affording 
relief  to  the  landed  interests  in  the  application  of  surplus  revenue. 
Then  came  a  proposal  from  a  League  member  for  a  Committee  to 
find  out  what  was  really  the  nature  and  amount  of  the  peculiar 
burdens  of  which  the  landed  interest  had  to  complain.  Mr.  Bright 
moved  for  a  Committee  on  the  Game  Laws.  Mr.  Villiers  pressed 
his  regular  annual  motion  for  total  and  immediate  repeal.  Lord 
John  llussell  introduced  a  string  of  nine  resolutions,  dealing  with 
the  Corn  Laws,  the  law  of  parochial  settlement,  national  education, 
and  systematic  colonization,  all  with  a  view  to  the  permanent 
improvement  of  the  condition  of  the  working  class,  and  especially 
of  the  laborers  in  husbandry. 

"  Bright  did  his  work  admirably,"  says  Cobden, "  and  won  golden 
opinions  from  all  men.  His  speech  took  the  squires  quite  aback. 
At  the  morning  meeting  of  the  county  members  at  Peel's,  to  decide 
upon  the  course  to  be  taken,  the  Prime  Minister  advised  his  pack 
not  to  be  drawn  into  any  discussion  by  the  violent  speech  of  the 
member  for  Durham,  but  to  allow  the  Committee  to  be  granted  sw& 
sihntio  !  This  affair  will  do  us  good  in  a  variety  of  ways.  It  has 
put  Bright  in  a  right  position  —  shown  that  he  has  power,  and  it 
will  draw  the  sympathy  of  the  farmers  to  the  League.  The  latter 
conviction  seemed  to  weigh  heavily  upon  the  spirits  of  the  squires. 
They  seemed  to  feel  that  we  had  put  them  in  a  false  position 
towards  their  tenants,  and  the  blockheads  could  not  conceal  their 
spite  towards  the  League.  I  pleaded  guilty  for  the  League  to  all 
they  charged  us  with  on  this  score."  ^ 

The  result  of  these  incessant  challenges  to  the  landlords  and 
to  the  Ministers  was  a  thorough  sifting  of  the  arguments,  and 
the  establishment  of  a  perfectly  clear  and  intelligible  position. 
No  Committee  was  granted,  except  Mr.  Bright's,  but  discussion 
brought  out  the  main  facts  as  clearly  as  any  Committee  could 
have  done.  It  became  stamped  on  men's  minds  that  while 
abundant  food  stimulated  manufactures  and  promoted  the  com- 
fort of  the  whole  body  of  workmen  and  laborers,  legislative 
protection  was  not  saving,  and  could  not  save,  the  farmers.  The 
contention,  again,  that  the  landlords  were  subjected  to  special 
burdens,  and  were  therefore  entitled  to  special  exemptions,  had 
completely  broken  down.  The  whole  process  went  on  under  the 
closely  attentive  eyes  of  the  Prime  Minister.  The  year  before, 
said  Cobden,  he  had  not  penetrated  the  quality  of  his  protectionist 
friends.  This  year  they  set  up  for  themselves  ;  they  found  out  their 
weakness,  and,  what  is  more,  they  let  Sir  Eobert  hnd  it  out  also.^ 

1  To  Mr.  George  Wilson.    London,  Feb.  28,  1845.  2  Speeches,  i.  290. 


iET.41.]  NEW   TACTICS.  213 

Cobden  himself  helped  to  the  result  by  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant speeches  that  he  ever  made.  "  We  are  certainly,"  he  wrote  to 
his  wife,  "  taking  more  prominent  ground  this  session  than  ever,  and 
the  tone  of  the  farmers'  friends  is  very  subdued  indeed.  Tliey 
never  open  their  mouths  if  they  can  help  it,  and  then  they  speak 
in  a  very  humble  strain.  I  am  quite  in  a  fidget  about  my  speech 
on  Thursday.  You  will  think  it  very  strange  in  an  old  hack 
demagogue  like  me,  if  I  confess  that  I  am  as  nervous  as  a  maid  the 
day  before  her  wedding.  The  reason  is  I  suppose  that  I  know  a 
good  deal  is  expected  from  me,  and  I  am  afraid  I  shall  disappoint 
others  as  w^ell  as  myself.  I  have  sent  for  Mr.  Lattimore,  who 
came  up  and  spent  an  evening  with  me,  on  purpose  to  give  me  a 
lesson  about  the  farmers'  view  of  the  question."  ^ 

"  I  was  terribly  out  of  sorts  with  the  task,"  he  said,  after  it  was 
all  over,  "  and  when  I  got  up  to  speak,  I  was  all  in  a  maze."  In 
fact,  an  intimate  friend  who  had  stood  on  many  a  platform  with 
him,  found  him  in  the  lobby,  pale,  nervous,  and  confident  that  he 
should  break  down  in  the  middle  of  his  speech.  "  No,  you  will 
not,"  said  his  friend ;  "  your  nervousness  convinces  me  that  you 
will  make  a  better  speech  than  you  ever  made  before  in  your  life." 
And  that  is  what  actually  happened.  In  sending  his  wife  a  copy 
of  the  Times  containing  a  report  of  his  speech,  Cobden  wrote  to  her 
that  everybody  in  the  House  on  both  sides  spoke  highly  of  it,  and 
declared  it  to  be  his  best.  '*  But  I  don't  think,"  he  adds, "  that  it 
was  as  good  as  it  ought  to  have  been."  ^  The  Prime  Minister  had 
followed  every  sentence  with  earnest  attention  ;  his  face  grew  more 
and  more  solemn  as  the  argument  proceeded.  At  length  he 
crumpled  up  the  notes  which  he  had  been  taking,  and  was  heard  by 
an  onlooker,  who  was  close  by,  to  say  to  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert,  who 
sat  next  him  on  the  bench,  "  You  must  answer  this,  for /cannot." 
And  in  fact  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert  did  make  the  answer,  while  Peel 
listened  in  silence.^ 

This  speech  should  be  read  in  connection  with  the  companion 
speech  made  the  year  before,  and  already  referred  to  (p.  196). 
Much  of  Cobden's  speaking,  and  especially  at  this  time,  though 
never  deficient  in  point  and  matter,  was  loose  in  its  form  and  slip- 

1  To  Mrs.  Cobden.     March  11,  1845.  2  ^o  Mrs.   Cobden.  March  14,  1845. 

3  In  the  course  of  his  speech  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert  said  that  it  was  very  distasteful 
to  him,  as  a  member  of  the  agricultural  body,  to  be  always  coming  to  Parliament 
"whining  for  protection."  The  expression  was  unlucky,  and  gave  Mr.  Disraeli  tiie 
hint  for  one  of  his  most  pungent  sallies.  The  agriculturists,  he  said,  referring  to 
Peel's  inconsistencies,  must  not  contrast  too  nicely  the  hours  of  courtship  with  the 
moments  of  possession.  "There  was  little  said  now  about  the  gentlemen  of  Eng- 
land ;  when  the  beloved  object  has  ceased  to  charm,  it  is  vain  to  appeal  to  the 
feelings.  Instead  of  listening  to  their  complaints,  he  sends  down  his  valet,  a  well- 
behaved  person,  to  make  it  known  that  we  are  to  have  no  *  whining '  here.  Such  is 
the  fate  of  the  great  agricultural  interest ;  that  beauty  which  everybody  wooed,  and 
one  deluded." 


/ 


214  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1845. 

shod  in  arrangement.  That  it  should  be  so,  was  unavoidable  under 
the  circumstances  in  which  his  addresses  were  made.  These  two 
speeches,  on  the  contrary,  show  him  at  his  best.  They  are  models 
of  the  way  in  which  a  great  case  should  be  presented  to  the  House 
of  Commons,  as  well  as  admirable  examples  of  effective  selection, 
luminous  arrangement,  and  honest  cogency  of  reasoning  in  intri- 
cate and  difficult  matter.  Besides  all  this,  they  show  how  com- 
pletely Cobden  had  worked  out  the  whole  conception  of  economic 
policy  and  the  whole  scheme  of  statesmanship,  of  which  the  repeal 
of  the  Corn  Law  was  only  a  detail  and  a  condition  precedent. 
Many  of  the  subscribers  to  the  League  were  no  doubt  only  thinking 
that  Free  Trade  would  bring  them  new  armies  of  good  customers. 
The  Whigs,  on  the  other  hand,  while  sincerely  concerned  for  the 
social  state  of  the  realm,  picked  up  the  notion  of  Free  Trade 
vaguely,  along  with  education  and  colonization,  as  one  remedy 
among  others.  Cobden  alone  seemed  to  discern  what  Free  Trade 
meant,  how  it  was  being  forced  upon  us  by  increase  of  population 
and  other  causes,  and  how  many  changes  it  would  bring  with  it 
in  the  whole  social  structure.  It  was  this  commanding  grasp  of 
the  entire  policy  of  his  subject,  which  gradually  gave  Cobden  such 
a  hold  over  the  receptive  intelligence  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  that  at 
last  it  amounted  to  a  fascination  that  was  irresistible. 

Why  are  the  farmers  distressed  ?  Cobden  asked.  Why  are 
English  farmers  less  successful  than  English  manufacturers  ? 
Because  they  are  working  their  trade  with  insufficient  capital. 
Throughout  England,  south  of  the  Trent  and  including  Wales, 
the  farmers'  capital  is  not  more  than  five  pounds  an  acre,  whereas 
for  carrying  on  the  business  successfully  it  ought  to  be  twice  as 
much.  How  is  it  that  in  a  country  overflowing  with  capital, 
where  every  other  pursuit  is  abounding  with  money,  when  money 
is  going  to  France  for  railways  and  tp  Pennsylvania  for  bonds, 
when  it  is  connecting  the  Atlantic  with  the  Pacific  by  canals, 
and  diving  to  the  bottom  of  the  Mexican  mines  for  investments, 
it  yet  finds  no  employment  in  the  most  attractive  of  all  spots,  the  , 
soil  of  this  country  itself?  The  answer  is  plain.  There  is  no 
security  of  tenure  such  as  will  warrant  men  of  capital  in  invest- 
ing their  money  in  the  soil.  But  what  is  the  connection  between 
this  insecurity  of  tenure  and  agricultural  protection  ?  The  reply 
is  that  the  protectionist  landowners  are  in  a  vicious  circle.  They 
think  the  Corn  Laws  are  a  great  mine  of  wealth ;  they  want 
voters  to  retain  them,  and  therefore  they  will  have  dependent 
tenants  on  whom  they  may  count  at  the  elections.  If  they  insist 
on  having  dependent  tenants  they  will  not  get  men  of  spirit  and 
of  capital.  The  policy  reacts  upon  them.  If  they  have  not  men 
of  skill  and  capital  they  cannot  have  full  provision  and  employ- 
ment for  the  laborer.     And  then  comes  round  the  vicious  close  of 


^T.41.]  ACTIVITY   IN   PARLIAMENT.  215 

the  circle,  pauperism,  poor-rates,  county-rates,  and  all  the  other 
"special  burdens"  of  the  landed  interest  —  special  burdens  of 
their  own  express  creation.^  Their  fundamental  error  lay  in 
thinking  that  rents  could  only  be  kept  up  by  Protection.  Even 
if  this  had  been  true.  Protection  had  become  impossible,  from  the 
pressure  of  population.     But  it  was  not  true. 

To  the  farmers  Cobden  had  never  given  a  probable  reduction 
of  rents  as  one  of  the  reasons  for  repealing  the  Corn  Law.  He 
told  them  something  still  more  important.  "  Though  I  have  not 
promised  reduction  of  rent,"  he  said,  "  I  have,  however,  always 
maintained  that  with  Free  Trade  in  corn,  and  with  moderate 
prices,  if  the  present  rents  are  to  be  maintained,  it  must  be  by, 
means  of  a  different  system  of  managing  property  from  that  which 
you  now.  pursue.  You  must  have  men  of  capital  on  your  land  ; 
you  must  let  your  land  on  mercantile  principles ;  you  must 
not  be  afraid  of  an  independent  and  energetic  man  who  will  vote 
as  he  pleases ;  you  must  give  up  inordinate  game-preserving."  ^ 

This  was  the  skeleton  of  Cobden's  argument,  and  each  member 
of  it  was  clothed  with  exactly  the  amount  of  graphic  illustrations 
from  sound  authorities  that  was  calculated  to  bring  the  case  effect- 
ively home.  The  representatives  of  the  farmers  were  surprised 
to  be  told  of  many  things,  which  they  immediately  wondered  that 
they  had  not  thought  of  before.  The  farmers  of  Kent,  Suffolk, 
and  Surrey,  enjoyed  a  protection  in  their  libps,  but  they  had  in 
return  to  pay  for  the  protection  on  other  articles  which  they  did 
not  produce.  Those  of  Chester,  Gloucester,  and  Wilts  had  an 
interest  in  protecting  cheese,  but  they  were  heavily  taxed  for  the 
oats  and  beans  which  they  wanted  for  their  beasts.  The  farmers 
in  the  Lothians  had  the  benefit  of  a  restrictive  duty  on  wheat, 
but  this  was  a  trifle  compared  with  the  disadvantage  of  having 
to  pay  duty  on  linseed  cake  and  other  items  of  provender  for 
cattle.  Everybody,  in  short,  was  taxed  for  the  benefit  of  every-  . 
body  else.  If  the  farmer  derived  so  little  good  from  protection, 
the  laborer  derived  still  less.  Members  were  startled  to  be  told 
that  more  goods  had  been  exported  to  Brazil  in  a  year  than  had  y 
been  consumed  in  the  same  time  by  the  whole  agricultural 
peasantry  and  their  families  in  England ;  that  no  laborer  in  Eng- 
land spent  more  than  thirty  shillings  a  year  in  manufactures,  if 
the  article  of  shoes  were  excepted ;  that  the  same  class  did  not 
pay  fifteen  shillings  a  head  per  annum  to  the  revenue,  and  that 
the  whole  of  their  contributions  to  the  revenue  did  not  amount 
to  three  quarters  of  a  million  a  year.  This,  said  Cobden  trium- 
phantly, is  the  pass  to  which  tliirty  years  of  Protection  have  brought 
the  agricultural  interest.     "  There  never  was  a  more  monstrous 

1  Speeches,  i.  264,  265.  2  Speeches,  i.  402,  403.     March  8,  1849. 


216  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1845- 

delusion  than  to  suppose  that  that  which  goes  to  increase  the 
trade  of  the  country,  and  to  extend  its  manufactures  and  com- 
merce ;  that  which  increases  our  population,  enlarges  the  number 
of  your  customers,  and  diminishes  your  burdens  by  multiplying 
the  shoulders  that  are  to  bear  them,  and  giving  them  increased 
strength  to  bear  them,  can  possibly  tend  to  lessen  the  value  of 
land."  1 

Mr.  Disraeli  once  said  that  Free  Trade  was  not  a  principle,  it 
was  an  expedient.  In  Cobden's  hands  just  the  reverse  is  true ; 
Free  Trade  is  not  an  expedient ;  it  is  a  principle,  a  doctrine,  and 
^z  a  system.  He  is  often  charged  with  arguing  his  case  too  exclu- 
sively on  the  immediate  exigencies  of  the  situation.  It  was  hardly 
possible  for  him  to  do  otherwise.  Neither  the  House  of  Commons 
nor  the  multitude  at  Covent  Garden  would  have  listened  with 
patience  to  a  lecture  on  international  exchanges.  But  whenever 
he  had  a  chance,  Cobden  took  care  to  rest  his  argument  on  the 
importance  of  a  free  circulation  in  the  currents  of  exchange.  In 
his  speech  of  the  previous  year,  he  had  blamed  Sir  Eobert  Peel 
for  promising  cheap  prices  as  the  result  of  his  tariff.  The  price 
of  commodities,  said  Cobden,  may  spring  from  two  causes :  —  a 
temporary,  fleeting,  and  retributive  high  price,  produced  by 
scarcity ;  or  a  permanent  and  natural  high  price,  produced  by 
prosperity.  The  price  of  wool,  for  example,  had  been  highest 
when  the  importation  was  greatest ;  it  sprang  from  the  prosperity 
of  the  consumers.  Peel,  therefore,  took  the  "  least  comprehensive 
and  statesmanlike  view  of  his  measures  when  he  proposed  to 
lower  prices,  instead  of  aiming  to  maintain  them  by  enlarging 
the  circle  of  exchange!'  Prices  would  take  care  of  themselves 
without  detriment  to  the  consumer,  provided  only  that  the  stream 
of  commodities  were  allowed  to  flow  freely  and  without  artificial 
interruption.     (See  below,  p.  541.) 

This  important  idea  was  probably  far  beyond  the  reach  of  most 
of  Cobden's  hearers.  I  know  there  are  many  heads,  he  once 
said,  who  cannot  comprehend  and  master  a  proposition  in  political 
economy,  for  I  believe  that  that  study  is  the  highest  exercise  of 
the  human  mind,  and  that  the  exact  sciences  require  by  no  means 
so  hard  an  effort.^  If,  however,  Cobden's  economic  language  was 
a  desperate  jargon  to  the  country  gentlemen,  it  came  with  the 
power  of  revelation  to  their  leader.  "  Sir  Eobert  Peel,"  said  Mr. 
Disraeli,  in  his  subtle  and  striking  portrait  of  his  great  enemy, 
"  had  a  dangerous  sympathy  with  the  creations  of  others.  He 
was  ever  on  the  look-out  for  new  ideas,  and  when  he  did  so  he 

^  Speeches,  i.  382.  Some  extremely  interesting  supplementary  criticisms  on 
Cobden's  view  of  the  effects  of  Protection  on  agricultural  interests  are  to  be  found 
in  Mr.  Fawcett's  Free  Trade  avd  Protection,  pp.  37-47. 

2  Speeches,  i.  383.     Feb.  27,  1846. 


^T.41.]  ACTIVITY   IN   PARLIAMENT.  217 

embraced  them  with  eagerness  and  often  with  precipitancy.  Al- 
tliough  apparently  wrapped  up  in  himself  and  supposed  to  be 
egotistical,  except  in  seasons  of  rare  exaltedness,  as  in  the  year 
1844-45,  he  was  really  deficient  in  self-confidence.  There  was 
always  some  person  representing  some  theory  or  system  exercising 
an  influence  over  his  mind.  In  his  '  sallet  days '  it  was  Mr.  Hor- 
ner or  Sir  Samuel  Eomilly ;  in  later  and  more  important  periods 
it  was  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  the  King  of  the  French,  Mr. 
Jones  Loyd,  some  others,  and  finally  Mr.  Cobden."  ^ 

It  was  in  this  session  that  Mr.  Disraeli  first  opened  his  raking 
fire  upon  the  Prime  Minister.  In  1842,  as  has  been  already  seen 
(p.  160),  he  declared  that  Peel's  policy  was  in  exact,  permanent, 
and  perfect  consistency  with  the  principles  of  Free  Trade  laid 
down  by  Mr.  Pitt.  But  clouds  had  risen  on  the  horizon  since 
then.  Things  had  happened  which  made  the  rising  gladiator 
change  his  mind,  not  as  to  the  national  expediency  of  Free  Trade, 
but  as  to  the  personal  expediency  of  carrying  his  sword  to  the 
opposite  camp.  Sir  Robert,  soon  after  coming  into  power,  observed 
to  a  friend  that  he  knew  too  little  of  the  young  men  of  the  party, 
and  expressed  a  wish  to  know  more.  The  friend  invited  him  to 
dinner,  and  among  the  men  of  promise  who  were  presented  to 
their  chief  was  Mr.  Disraeli.  Peel,  one  of  the  most  formal  and 
even  pedantic  of  men,  was  repelled  by  the  e^ctravagant  dress,  the 
singular  mannerism,  the  unbusinesslike  air  of  the  strange  genius 
who  sat  at  table  with  liim.  Nothing  came  of  the  interview,  and 
the  mortified  aspirant  had  to  bide  his  time.  In  1845  Mr.  Disraeli 
felt,  as  he  afterwards  said,  that  Protection  was  in  the  condition  in 
which  Protestantism  had  been  in  1828.  With  a  shrewder  instinct 
than  Peel,  he  scented  the  elements  of  a  formidable  and  destructive 
mutiny.  Success  was  not  certain,  but  it  was  possible  enough  to 
be  worth  trying.  With  unparalleled  daring  he  hastened  to  sound 
the  attack.  In  the  session  of  1845  Peel  seemed  to  be  at  the 
height  of  his  power.  Yet  this  was  the  session  in  which  Mr. 
Disraeli  mocked  him  as  a  fine  actor  of  the  part  of  the  choleric 
gentleman ;  as  the  great  parliamentary  middleman,  who  bam- 
boozled one  party  and  plundered  the  other;  as  the  political 
Petruchio,  who  had  tamed  the  Liberal  shrew  by  her  own  tactics  ; 
as  the  Tory  who  had  found  the  Whigs  bathing  and  stolen  their 
clothes.  "  For  my  part,"  he  said  on  one  of  these  occasions,  "  if 
we  are  to  have  Free  Trade,  I,  who  honor  genius,  prefer  that  such 
measures  should  be  proposed  by  the  member  for  Stockport,  rather 
than  by  one  who  by  skilful  parliamentary  manoeuvres  has  tampered 
with  the  generous  confidence  of  a  great  people  and  a  great  party.'* 

Yet  Mr.  Disraeli,  whose  sagacity  was  always  of  far  too  power- 

1  Lord  George  Bentinck,  p.  221. 


218  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1845.. 

ful  a  kind  to  allow  him  to  blink  facts,  knew  very  well,  as  he 
afterwards  said,  that  practically  for  the  moment  the  Conservative 
Government  was  stronger  at  the  end  of  the  session  of  1845  than 
even  at  the  commencement  of  the  session  of  1842.  "If  they 
had  forfeited  the  hearts  of  their  adherents,  they  had  not  lost  their 
votes ;  while  both  in  Parliament  and  the  country  they  had  suc- 
ceeded in  appropriating  a  mass  of  loose,  superficial  opinion,  not 
trammelled  by  party  ties,  and  which  complacently  recognized  in 
their  measures  the  gradual  and  moderate  fulfilment  of  a  latitudi- 
narian  policy  both  in  Church  and  State."  The  same  keen  observer 
goes  on  to  remark  of  those  with  whom  we  are  immediately  con- 
cerned, that  in  spite  of  their  powers  of  debate  and  their  external 
organization,  the  close  of  the  session  found  the  members  of  the 
Manchester  confederacy  reduced  to  silence.  The  state  of  prices, 
of  the  harvests,  of  commerce,  had  rendered  appeals  varied  even 
by  the  persuasive  ingenuity  of  Mr.  Cobden  a  wearisome  iteration.^ 

Cobden  himself,  however,  knew  exactly  how  things  stood,  and 
foresaw  with  precision  how  they  would  move.  In  the  summer  of 
1845,  when  Parliament  had  found  his  appeal  a  wearisome  itera- 
tion, he  had  before  him  one  of  those  immense  multitudes,  such  as 
could  only  be  assembled,  he  said,  in  ancient  Kome  to  witness  the 
brutal  conflicts  of  men,  or  as  can  now  be  found  in  Spain  to  wit- 
ness the  brutal  conflicts  of  animals.  What,  he  asked,  if  you  could 
get  into  the  innermost  minds  of  the  Ministers,  would  you  find 
them  thinking  as  to  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  ?  "I  know  it 
as  well  as  though  I  were  in  their  hearts.  It  is  this :  they  are  all 
afraid  that  this  Corn  Law  cannot  be  maintained  —  no,  not  a  rag 
of  it,  during  a  period  of  scarcity  prices,  of  a  famine  season,  such 
as  we  had  in  '39,  '40,  and  '41.  They  know  it.  They  are  prepared, 
when  such  a  time  comes,  to  abolish  the  Corn  Laws,  and  they 
have  made  up  their  minds  to  it.  There  is  no  doubt  in  the  world 
of  it.  They  are  going  to  repeal  it,"  he  went  on,  "  as  I  told  you 
—  mark  my  words  —  at  a  season  of  distress.  That  distress  may 
come  ;  ay,  three  weeks  of  showery  weather  when  the  wheat  is  in 
bloom  or  ripening,  would  repeal  these  Corn  Laws."  ^  You  cannot 
call  statesmanship,  he  scornfully  argued,  a  policy  which  leaves  the 
industrial  scheme  of  such  a  country  as  ours  to  stand  or  fall  in 
such  a  way  as  this  on  the  cast  of  a  die.  It  was  not  long  before 
events  put  Cobden  startlingly  in  the  right. 

The  great  popular  agitation  of  the  year,  as  it  happened,  was 
caused  by  a  measure  which  touched  a  very  different  kind  of  sensi- 
bility. This  session  Peel  introduced  the  memorable  proposal  for 
the  augmentation  of  the  grant  to  the  Catholic  College  at  May- 
nooth.     That  laudable  measure  was  a  small  detail  in  the  policy 

1  Life  of  Bentincky  p.  7.  2  Speeches,  i.  292,  299. 


^T.4L]  THE   MAYNOOTH   GRANT.  219 

of  breaking  up  the  old  system  of  Ascendency  —  a  policy  made 
necessary  by  the  revolution  of  Catholic  Emancipation,  in  which 
Peel  had  assisted  in  so  remarkable  a  way.  Unfortunately,  Peel 
never  saw  what  clear-sighted  men  like  Lord  Clare  saw  at  the 
time  of  the  Union,  that  the  tenure  of  land  was  the  only  real 
object  of  interest  to  the  people  to  whom  he  had  given  political 
emancipation.  His  attitude  in  reference  to  the  Encumbered 
Estates  Act  showed  that  he  did  not  possess  the  key  to  the 
Irish  question.  But  his  views  on  the  solution  of  the  religious 
difficulty  were  thoroughly  statesmanlike,  so  far  as  that  particular 
difficulty  went.  Nothing  that  he  ever  did  showed  greater  cour- 
age than  the  Maynooth  grant ;  for  though  he  carried  his  second 
reading  by  the  enormous  majority  of  147,  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
undoubtedly  right  when  he  reluctantly  affirmed  that  the  minority 
represented  the  prevailing  sense  of  a  great  majority  of  the  people 
of  England  and  Scotland.^  The  principles  on  which  Peel  de- 
fended the  increased  grant  to  Maynooth,  pointed  very  directly 
towards  a  scheme  for  the  endowment  of  the  Catholic  clergy.  It 
was  for  this  reason,  among  others,  that  Lord  John  Eussell  sup- 
ported the  increased  grant.  "  The  arguments,"  he  said,  "  which 
are  so  sound,  and  as  I  think  so  incontrovertible,  for  an  endow- 
ment for  the  education  of  the  Eoman  Catholic  priesthood,  would 
prove  on  another  occasion  equally  sound  and  incontrovertible 
for  an  endowment  to  maintain  that  priesthood."  It  is  doubtful 
whether  any  Liberal  leader  will  ever  again  be  able  to  take  what 
was  once  so  wise  and  just  a  position,  but  there  is  still  room  for 
the  position  which  Cobden  took.  Mr.  Bright  opposed  the  grant 
altogether,  on  the  ground  that  no  purely  ecclesiastical  institution 
should  be  paid  for  out  of  the  public  taxes.  Cobden,  on  the  con- 
trary, both  spoke  and  voted  for  the  Ministerial  Bill.  He  was 
unable  to  find  in  it  anything  relating  to  the  endowment  of  the 
Catholic  clergy:  what  he  voted  for  was  simply  and  purely  au^ 
extended  educational  grant.  What  objection  could  there  be  to 
giving  a  good  education,  in  any  manner  in  which  it  can  be  most 
effectually  given,  to  a  body  of  men  who  are  to  be  the  instructors 
of  many  millions  of  people  ?  You  give  large  grants  to  elementary 
schools  in  Ireland ;  you  vote  money  to  the  university,  from  which 
the  Catholic  clergy  cannot  benefit ;  but  if  you  support  instruction 
to  Eoman  Catholics  at  all,  it  is  wise  and  politic  to  give  it  to  the 
clergy  before  every  other  order.     On  the  merits  he  would  support 

1  Mr.  Gladstone  had  resigned  the  office  of  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Session,  on  the  rather  singular  ground  that,  while  he  approved 
of  the  Maynooth  grant  and  was  going  to  support  it,  he  had  once  written  a  book  in 
which  a  different  view  of  the  proper  relations  between  State  and  Church  had  been 
laid  down.  "As  a  general  rule,  those  who  have  borne  solemn  testimony  on  great 
constitutional  questions  ought  not  to  be  parties  to  proposing  a  material  departure 
from  them." 


220  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1845. 

the  proposal,  and  he  would  do  so  all  the  more  cheerfully  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  acceptable  to  the  Irish  people.^  This  is  as 
wise  as  political  wisdom  can  be,  but  the  present  state  of  the  Irish 
University  question  looks  as  if  Mr.  Bright's  view,  and  not  Cob- 
den's,  had  won  the  day. 

The  following  extracts  from  letters  to  his  wife  will  show  how 
Cobden  passed  the  time  from  day  to  day,  during  this  anxious  and 
wearisome  session :  — 

*' London,  Feb.  11,  1845.  —  I  met  Lord  Howick  [the  present 
Earl  Grey]  at  dinner,  as  was  told  you  by  Miss  Bright.  He  did 
not  convert  me  to  Whiggery,  nor  did  he  make  any  attempt  upon 
my  virtue.  He  is  in  very  good  temper  with  the  League,  and 
quite  disposed  to  help  us,  and  to  throw  the  fixed  duty  overboard. 
Bright  made  a  very  powerful  but  rasping  speech  the  other  night. 
The  milk-and-water  people  will  find  fault  with  him,  but  he  is 
a  noble  fellow,  and  ought  to  be  backed  up  by  every  genuine 
Free-trader." 

"April  11.  — We  are  all  being  plagued  to  death  with  the  fa- 
natics about  the  Maynooth  grant.  The  dissenters  and  the  church 
people  have  joined  together  to  put  the  screw  upon  tlie  members. 
However,  I  expect  that  Peel  will  carry  his  measure  by  a  large 
majority." 

"April  14. — We  are  still  being  very  much  persecuted  by  the 
fanatics ;  all  the  bigots  in  the  country  seem  to  be  using  the  priv- 
ilege of  writing  their  remonstrances  to  me." 

"  April  28.  —  I  can't  fix  the  day,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  when  I 
shall  positively  see  you.  There  is  a  notice  of  motion  standing 
by  Lord  John  Eussell  upon  the  state  of  the  laboring  population, 
which  I  am  almost  compelled  to  take  a  part  in.  If  I  were  to  be 
absent,  it  would  be  construed  into  a  slight  on  the  Whig  party. 
It  stands  for  Friday,  but  I  am  not  without  hope  that  he  may  put 
it  off  till  after  the  Whitsun  holidays.  I  will  learn  his  views  to- 
morrow if  I  can." 

"June  19.  —  On  Wednesday  I  was  to  speak  at  Covent  Garden, 
and  being  confined  all  the  day  in  the  Committee-room,  and  hav- 
ing to  prepare  my  speech  after  four  o'clock,  I  knew  I  should  be 
excused  writing.  I  find  it  very  difficult  to  get  up  my  spirits  to 
appear  before  a  large  audience  like  that  at  Covent  Garden.  In- 
deed, I  feel  myself  to  be  only  acting  a  part,  in  appearing  to  speak 
with  energy,  hope,  and  confidence.  I  can't  go  through  another 
period  such  as  the  present  session,  to  be  harassed  and  annoyed 
as  I  have  been  in  every  possible  way ;  it  would  kill  me.     I  have 

1  April  18.  In  twenty-five  years  Cobden  and  Mr.  Bright  only  went  twice  into 
different  lobbies.  This  was  one  occasion.  The  other  concerned  the  expenditure  at 
South  Kensington.  Cobden  as  a  Commissioner  for  the  Great  Exhibition  supported 
Prince  Albert's  policy. 


iET.41.]  PRIVATE  AFFAIRS.  221 

not  the  least  idea  when  I  shall  be  released  from  my  attendance  at 
the  Committee.  To-day  we  have  been  bored  with  a  three  hours' 
speech  from  a  counsel,  who  would  have  nothing  else  to  do  if 
he  released  us  from  our  confinement.  I  expect  we  shall  have 
another  week  of  it  at  least." 

"  June  20.  —  Now  I  will  give  you  a  specimen  of  my  day's  work. 
Our  Committee  meets  at  twelve  and  sits  till  four.  Then  the 
House  commences,  and  lasts  on  an  average  till  twelve.  Twice 
last  week  I  sat  till  two  o'clock  in  the  House,  having  been  un- 
der the  roof  for  fourteen  hours.  Next  morning  I  can't  be  down 
till  nine  o'clock,  and  scarcely  have  1  got  breakfast,  and  glanced  at 
the  Votes  and  Proceedings  for  the  day,  when  I  must  start  again 
for  the  House.  You  will,  I  think,  excuse  me  after  this,  if  I  am 
not  a  very  good  correspondent." 

"  June  24.  —  There  never  was  such  a  case  of  petty  persecution 
as  I  am  enduring  in  this  Eailway  Committee !  We  have  been 
now  nearly  five  weeks  sitting,  hearing  witnesses,  and  listening  to 
the  tedious  harangues  of  counsel  about  a  lot  of  paltry  lines  among 
the  little  towns  and  villages  in  Norfolk  and  Suffolk.  I  thought 
we  should  have  got  to  the  end  of  our  work  in  a  fortnight  or  three 
weeks,  but  now  we  are  threatened  with  another  week  or  ten  days. 
And  the  great  misfortune  is,  that  we  have  no  power  to  put  any 
restraint  upon  the  tongues  of  the  counsel,  who  are  paid  in  propor- 
tion to  the  length  of  time  they  can  waste.  But  I  have  made  up 
my  mind  to  go  down  to  Manchester  on  Friday  night  at  any  rate, 
although  I  shall  be  obliged  to  come  up  again  on  Sunday  night,  to 
be  here  in  the  Committee  at  twelve  o'clock." 

"J?.me  26.  —  The  meeting  at  Covent  Garden  was  as  usual  a 
bumper,  but  I  did  not  think  the  speaking  was  quite  up  to  the 
mark.  I  have  had  a  successful  motion  for  a  Commission  to  in- 
quire into  the  subject  of  the  Eailway  gauges.  I  moved  it  again 
yesterday  as  a  substantive  motion,  and  it  was  agreed  to  by  all 
parties.  It  is  well  to  do  something  practical  in  the  House  occa- 
sionally, as  it  gives  one  the  standing  of  a  man  of  business." 

Over  all  these  busy  interests  hung  a  heavy  cloud  of  the  gloom- 
iest thoughts.  Throughout  the  session  Cobden's  mind  had  been 
harassed  almost  beyond  endurance  by  a  host  of  dark  cares ;  and 
it  is  only  by  knowing  what  these  amounted  to,  that  we  can 
measure  the  intensity  of  a  devotion  to  public  concerns  which 
could  sustain  itself  unabated  under  this  galling  pressure.  The 
following  extracts  from  letters  to  his  brother  will  suffice  to  show 
us  what  was  going  on.  At  the  end  of  the  session  of  1844,  he  had 
allowed  a  groan  to  escape  him,  extorted  by  the  reports  which  his 
brother  had  sent  him  of  the  state  of  their  business :  —  "I  shall 
have  a  month  or  two  for  private  business,  and,  Heaven  knows,  it 
is  not  before  it  is  required.     It  is  a  dog's  life  I  am  leading,  and 


222  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1845. 

I  wish  I  could  see  my  way  out  of  the  collar."  ^  But  in  the  recess 
of  1844,  as  in  that  of  the  previous  year,  he  had  been  speedily 
dragged  back  from  his  own  affairs  to  those  of  the  League  and  the 
country.  Throughout  the  spring  of  1845,  however,  things  were 
rapidly  approaching  a  crisis  from  which  there  seemed  to  be  no 
escape  :  — 

"  April  7.  —  I  shall  certainly  be  down  a  week  before  the  Whit- 
suntide holidays,  so  as  to  have  at  least  a  fortnight.  The  fidgets 
have  so  got  possession  of  me  that  I  cannot  master  them.  For 
the  first  time  I  feel  fairly  down  and  dead-beaten.  It  is  of  no  use 
writing  all  one  feels.  Entreat  J.  S.  to  work  down  the  stock  of 
odds  and  ends  of  cloth,  and  keep  down  everything  as  low  as 
possible.  And  remind  Charles  again  of  the  critical  importance 
of  finding  something  for  the  machinery  to  do  in  the  interval  be- 
tween the  seasons.  It  is  of  no  use  your  writing  bad  news  to  me. 
I  can't  help  it  while  here." 

"April  18.  — I  do  not  see  any  difficulty  in  giving  adequate 
attention  to  the  business,  and  still  retaining,  ostensibly  at  all 
events,  the  same  public  position  as  heretofore.  But  w^hether  this 
can  be  done  or  not,  I  shall  of  course  make  everything  else  sub- 
servient to  the  one  point  in  which  honor  is  involved.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  our  pattern  department,  so  far  as  the  home  trade 
is  concerned,  has  been  a  failure  this  spring.  This  is  now  irre- 
mediable, and  it  is  of  no  use  dwelling  on  it.  But  it  cannot  be 
overlooked  in  any  estimate  of  the  management  at  the  works  and 
the  warehouse,  and  of  the  cause  of  failure." 

"  May  26.  —  I  am  fixed  in  the  Norfolk  Committee  to-day,  and 
do  not  feel  the  least  chance  of  being  released  for  a  week,  and  it 
may  be  a  month  ;  and  for  this  there  is  no  help,  for  if  I  were  to 
leave  for  twenty-four  hours,  the  Sergeant-at-Arms  would  be  after 
me." 

"  June  6.  —  T  am  sorry  to  say  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  come 
down  even  for  a  day.  Our  Committee  have  determined  to  sit  on 
Saturdays,  and  the  rule  of  the  House  precludes  me  from  being 
absent  even  for  an  hour.  God  only  knows  when  this  odious 
Committee  will  come  to  a  close.  If  you  should  wish  to  say  any- 
thing about  money-matters,  write  to  me.     If  you  want  a  little 

temporary  assistance,  pray  see  Mr. ,  and  give  him  a  message 

from  me  to  the  effect  that  I  shall  feel  obliged  if  he  will  try  to 
get  a  few  thousand  pounds  in  a  similar  manner  to  the  former 
transaction. 

"  But  w^hen  I  come  down  after  the  Session,  we  must  put  our 
business  upon  a  different  footing,  so  as  to  be  able  to  avoid 
troubling  anybody.     I  would  have  written  to  ,  but  really,  in 

1  To  F.  W.  Cohden.     Leamington,  8th  August,  1844. 


^T.41.]  PRIVATE  AFFAIRS.  223 

my  prominent  position,  it  is  a  very  delicate  matter  to  write  about. 
You  had  better,  therefore,  take  an  opportunity  of  seeing  him 
privately,  and  pray  beg  him  to  treat  the  matter  as  very  confiden- 
tial. I  have  so  many  vigilant  foes,  that  a  whisper  about  my 
credit  would  be  exaggerated  a  thousandfold." 

"June  19. — Your  letters  keep  me  on  the  tenter-hooks,  for  I 
know  not  in  what  extremity  you  may  be  placed.  I  am  in  the 
same  predicament  as  ever.  The  committee  will  in  all  probability 
last  a  week  more.  To-day  we  have  been  treated  to  a  three  hours' 
speech  by  a  counsel  upon  a  mere  fraction  of  the  group.  What 
makes  it  more  difficult  to  escape  is  that  the  committee  does  not 
give  a  decision  on  any  part  until  we  have  heard  the  whole,  and 
consequently  nobody  not  acquainted  with  the  evidence  already 
taken  could  step  in  to  fill  my  place.  Sir  Benjamin  Hall,  very 
luckily  for  him,  was  pitched  from  his  horse  on  liis  head  the  sec- 
ond day  of  our  meeting,  and  he  was  excused  from  further  attend- 
ance, and  as  we  have  nobody  else  in  his  place,  and  as  four  are  the 
quorum,  we  can't  proceed  to  business  in  the  absence  of  one." 

"  June  24.  —  I  will  try  to  put  off  any  meeting  of  the  com- 
mittee on  Saturday,  so  as  to  be  able  to  come  down  on  Friday 
night,  but  I  shall  be  obliged  to  be  in  town  again  on  Monday 
morning  by  twelve.  I  see  no  end  to  this  tedious  affair.  We 
have  an  appointment  for  another  branch  to  begin  oyv  Monday. 
The  truth  is,  the  rival  schemes  fight  for  time,  in  order  to  delay 
the  passing  of  the  bills  during  the  present  session.  But  T  will  at 
all  risks  come  down  on  Friday  afternoon  by  the  express  train, 
which  will  land  me  in  Manchester  at  ten  o'clock,  and  I  should 
like  to  have  a  bed  at  your  lodgings,  and  there  I  must  see  John 
Brooks  privately  on  the  Saturday  morning.  I  have  turned  the 
subject  over  in  every  way,  and  I  see  no  other  solution  of  it  than  in 
absolutely  withdrawing  myself  from  public  life,  first  having  se- 
cured such  a  promise  of  support  from  some  of  my  friends  as  shall 
secure  me  from  the  effects  of  the  shock.  T  have  made  up  my 
mind  to  this,  and  shall  not  have  a  moment's  peace  of  mind  until 
I  have  fairly  got  out  of  my  present  false  position.  In  fact,  I 
would  not  go  through  another  four  months  like  the  past  for  any 
earthly  consideration  whatever." 

A  friend  of  Cobden's,  who  was  engaged  in  the  same  business, 
has  told  me  how  he  received  a  message  one  afternoon  in  the 
winter  before  this,  that  Cobden  wished  to  see  him.  He  went 
over  to  the  office  in  Mosley  Street,  and  found  him  on  the  edge  of 
dark  sitting  with  his  feet  on  the  fender,  looking  gloomily  into  the 
languishing  fire.  He  was  evidently  in  great  misery.  Cobden 
had  sent  for  him  to  seek  his  advice  how  to  extricate  himself  from 
the  difficulties  in  which  his  business  had  become  involved.  They 
summoned  a  second  friend  to  their  sombre  counsels.     There  was 


224  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1845. 

^.110  doubt  either  of  the  seriousness  of  the  position  or  of  the  causes 
to  which  it  was  due.  His  business,  they  told  him,  wanted  a 
head.  If  he  persisted  in  his  present  course,  nothing  on  earth 
could  keep  him  from  ruin.  He  must  retire  from  public  life,  and 
must  retire  from  it  without  the  loss  of  a  day.  Cobden  struggled 
desperately  against  the  sentence.  The  battle,  he  said,  was  so 
momentous,  and  perhaps  so  nearly  won.  One  of  his  counsellors 
asked  him  how  he  could  either  work  or  rest  with  a  black  load 
like  this  upon  his  mind.  "  Oh,"  said  Cobden,  "  when  I  am  about 
public  affairs  I  never  think  of  it ;  it  does  not  touch  me ;  I  am 
asleep  the  moment  my  head  is  on  the  pillow." 

A  few  months  later  the  difficulty  could  no  longer  be  evaded. 
In  September  Cobden,  at  the  cost  of  anguish  which  we  may  ima- 
gine, came  to  the  terrible  resolution  to  give  up  public  affairs. 
He  wrote  a  letter,  describing  his  position  and  the  resolve  to 
w^hich"it  had  driven  him,  to  the  friend  who  had  for  four  unresting 
years  been  his  daily  comrade  and  fellow-soldier,  and  whose  mere 
presence  at  his  side,  he  once  said,  was  more  to  him  than  the 
active  support  of  a  hundred  other  men.  Mr.  Bright  was  then 
travelling  in  Scotland.  The  letter  found  him  one  evening  at  a 
hotel  in  Inverness.  It  was  the  wettest  autumn  in  the  memory 
of  man,  and  the  rain  came  over  the  hills  in  a  downpour  that 
never  ceased  by  night  or  by  day.  It  was.. the  rain  tlmt  rained 
away  the  Corn  Laws.  Cobden  begged  of  Mr.  bright  to  burn 
what  he  had  written,  and  the  injunction  was  obeyed.  It  was  a 
beautiful  letter,  Mr.  Bright  has  said  :  surely  we  may  say  no  less 
of  the  reply  :  — 

"Inverness,  September  20th,  1845. 

"My  dear  Cobden, —  I  received  your  letter  of  the  15th  yes- 
terday evening,  on  my  arrival  here.  Its  contents  have  made  me 
more  sad  than  I  can  express ;  it  seems  as  if  this  untoward  event 
contained  within  it  an  affliction  personal  for  myself,  great  public 
loss,  a  heavy  blow  to  one  for  whom  I  feel  a  sincere  friendship, 
and  not  a  little  of  danger  to  the  great  cause  in  which  we  have 
been  fellow-laborers.    " 

"  I  would  return  home  without  a  day's  delay,  if  I  had  a  valid 
excuse  for  my  sisters  who  are  here  with  me.  We  have  now  been 
out  nearly  three  weeks,  and  may  possibly  be  as  much  longer  be- 
fore we  reach  home;  our  plan  being  pretty  well  chalked  out 
beforehand,  I  don't  see  how  I  can  greatly  change  it  without 
giving  a  sufficient  reason.  But  it  does  not  appear  needful  that 
you  should  take  any  hasty  step  in  the  matter.  Too  much  is  at 
stake,  both  for  you  and  for  the  public,  to  make  any  sudden  de- 
cision advisable.  I  may  therefore  be  home  in  time  for  us  to 
have  some  conversation  before  anything  comes  before  the  public. 
Nothing  of  it  shall  pass  my  lips,  and  I  would  urge  nothing  to  be 


jet.41.]  private  affairs.  '  225 

done  till  the  latest  moment,  in  the  hope  that  some  way  of  escape 
may  yet  be  found.  I  am  of  opinion  that  your  retirement  would 
be  tantamount  to  a  dissolution  of  the  League ;  its  mainspring 
would  be  gone.  I  can  in  no  degree  take  your  place.  As  a  sec- 
ond I  can  fight ;  but  there  are  incapacities  about  me,  of  which  I 
am  fully  conscious,  which  prevent  my  being  more  than  a  second 
in  such  a  work  as  we  have  labored  in.  Do  not  think  I  wish  to 
add  to  your  trouble  by  writing  thus ;  but  I  am  most  anxious  that 
some  delay  should  take  place,  and  therefore  I  urge  that  which  I 
fully  believe,  that  the  League's  existence  depends  mostly  upon 
you,  and  that,  if  the  shock  cannot  be  avoided,  it  should  be  given 
only  after  the  weightiest  consideration,  and  in  such  way  as  to 
produce  the  least  evil. 

"  Be  assured  that  in  all  this  disappointment  you  have  my 
heartfelt  sympathy.  We  have  worked  long  and  hard  and  cor- 
dially together ;  and  I  can  say  most  truly  that  the  more  I  have 
known  of  you,  the  more  have  I  had  reason  to  admire  and  esteem 
you,  and  now  when  a  heavy  cloud  seems  upon  us,  I  must  not- 
wholly  give  up  the  hope  that  we  may  yet  labor  in  the  good  cause 
until  all  is  gained  for  which  we  have  striven.  You  speak  of  the 
attempts  which  have  been  made  to  raise  the  passion  which  led  to 
the  death  of  Abel,  and  to  weaken  us  by  destroying  the  confidence 
which  was  needful  to  our  successful  co-operation.  If  such  at- 
tempts have  been  made,  they  have  wholly  failed.  To  help  on 
the  cause,  I  am  sure  each  of  us  would  in  any  way  have  led  or 
followed ;  we  held  our  natural  and  just  position,  and  hence  our 
success.  In  myself  I  know  nothing  that  at  this  moment  would 
rejoice  me  more,  except  the  absence  of  these  difficulties,  than  that 
my  retirement  from  the  field  could  in  any  way  maintain  you  in 
the  front  rank.  The  victory  is  now  in  reality  gained,  and  our 
object  will  before  very  long  be  accomplished ;  but  it  is  often  as 
difficult  to  leave  a  victory  as  to  gain  it,  and  the  sagacity  of  lead- 
ers cannot  be  dispensed  with  while  anything  remains  to  be  done. 
Be  assured  I  shall  think  of  little  else  but  this  distressing  turn  of 
affkirs  till  I  meet  you ;  and  whilst  I  am  sorry  that  such  should  be 
the  position  of  things,  I  cannot  but  applaud  the  determination 
you  show  to  look  them  full  in  the  face,  and  to  grapple  with  the 
difficulties  whilst  they  are  yet  surmountable. 

"  I  have  written  this  letter  under  feelings  to  which  I  have  not 
been  able  to  give  expression,  but  you  will  believe  that 
I  am,  with  much  sympathy  and  esteem 
Your  sincere  friend, 

John  Bright." 

The  writer,  however,  felt  the  bad  tidings  lying  too  heavily  on 
him  to  be  able  to  endure  inaction.    A  day  or  two  later  Mr.  Bright 

15 


V 


226  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1845. 

changed  his  plans  and  hastened  southwards.  Helpful  projects 
revolved  in  his  mind,  as  he  watched  the  postboys  before  him 
pressing  on  through  the  steaming  rain.  When  he  reached  Man- 
chester, he  and  one  or  two  friends  procured  the  sum  of  money 
which  sufficed  to  tide  over  the  emergency.  For  the  moment  Cob- 
den  was  free  to  return  to  the  cause  which  was  now  on  the  eve  of 
victory. 


V 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE  AUTUMN   OF   1845. 

The  story  of  the  autumn  of  1845  has  often  been  told,  and  it  is  not 
necessary  that  it  should  be  told  over  again  in  any  detail  in  these 
pages.  It  constitutes  one  of  the  most  memorable  episodes  in  the 
history  of  party.  It  was  the  turning-point  in  the  career  of  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  of  English  Ministers.  It  marked  the  decisive 
step  in  the  greatest  of  all  revolutions  in  our  commercial  policy. 
And  it  remains  the  central  incident  in  the  public  life  of  the  states- 
man who  is  the  subject  of  these  memoirs. 

In  his  powerful  speech  in  1844  Cobden  had  reminded  the 
House  of  Commons,  for  men  were  apt  to  forget  it,  he  said,  that  in 
Ireland  there  was  a  duty  at  that  day  of  eighteen  shillings  a  quar- 
ter upon  the  import  of  foreign  wheat.  Will  it  be  believed  in 
future  ages,  he  cried,  that  in  a  country  periodically  on  the  point 
of  actual  famine  —  at  a  time  when  its  inhabitants  subsisted  on 
the  lowest  food,  the  very  roots  of  the  earth  —  there  was  a  law  in 
existence  which  virtually  prohibited  the  importation  of  bread  ?  ^ 
The  crisis  had  now  arrived.  The  session  was  hardly  at  an  end 
before  disquieting  rumors  began  to  come  over  from  Ireland.  As 
the  autumn  advanced,  it  became  certain  that  the  potato  crop  was 
a  disastrous  failure.  The  Prime  Minister  had,  in  his  own  words, 
devoted  almost  every  hour  of  his  time,  after  the  severe  labors  of 
the  session,  to  watching  chances  and  reading  evidence  night  and 
day,  in  anticipation  of  the  heavy  calamity  which  hung  over  the 
nation.  By  the  middle  of  October  the  apprehension  of  actual 
scarcity  had  become  very  vivid,  and  he  wrote  to  Sir  James  Gra- 
ham that  the  only  effectual  remedy  was  the  removal  of  impedi- 
ments to  import.  On  the  last  day  of  the  month,  the  members  of 
the  Cabinet  met  in  great  haste.  Three  other  meetings  took  place 
within  the  week.     A  marked  divergence  of  opinion  instantly  be- 

1  Speeches,  i.  164. 


^T.41.]  THE   AUTUMN   OF   1845.  227 

came  manifest.  Sir  Robert  Peel  wished  to  summon  Parliament, 
and  to  advise  the  suspension  for  a  limited  period  of  the  restric- 
tions on  importation.  Lord  Aberdeen,  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert,  and 
Sir  James  Graham  supported  this  view.  The  other  members  of 
the  Cabinet,  following  Lord  Stanley  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington, 
dissented.  Peel  did  not  disguise,  and  the  dissidents  were  well 
aware,  how  difficult  it  might  be  to  put  the  corn  duties  on  again 
if  they  had  once  been  taken  off.  It  was  felt  on  both  sides  that 
the  great  struggle  which  had  been  going  on  ever  since  the  Whigs 
proposed  their  fixed  duty,  and  in  whicli  Peel  had  shown  so  many 
ominous  signs  of  change,  was  now  coming  to  an  issue.  On  both 
sides  there  was  a  natural  reluctance  to  precipitate  it.  On  the  6th 
of  November  Ministers  separated  without  coming  to  a  decision.     • 

A  skilful  enemy  was  intently  watching  their  proceedings  from 
the  northern  metropolis.  On  the  22d  of  November  Lord- John 
RilS^ll  launched  from  Edinburgh  his  famous  letter  to  his  constit- 
uents in  the  City  of  London.  He  had  seen  in  the  public  prints 
that  Ministers  had  met ;  that  they  had  consulted  together  for 
many  days ;  and  that  nothing  had  been  done.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances he  thought  that  the  Government  were  not  performing 
their  duty  to  their  Sovereign  and  their  country.  The  present  state 
of  the  country  could  not  be  viewed  without  apprehension.  Pro- 
crastination might  produce  a  state  of  suffering  that  was  frightful 
to  contemplate,  but  bold  precaution  might  avert  serious  evils.  It 
was  no  longer  worth  while  to  contend  for  a  fixed  duty.  Let  them 
all  then  unite  to  put  an  end  to  a  system  which  had  been  proved 
to  be  the  blight  of  commerce,  the  bane  of  agriculture,  the  source 
of  bitter  division  among  classes,  the  cause  of  penury,  fever,  mor- 
tality, and  crime  among  the  people.  If  this  end  was  to  be  achieved, 
it  must  be  gained  by  the  unequivocal  expression  of  the  public 
voice. 

The  Edinburgh  Letter  was  the  formal  announcement  that  Lord 
John  Russell  had  come  round  to  Cobden's  programme,  the  winning 
of  Free  Trade  by  agitation.  Sir  Robert  Peel's  conversion,  as 
everybody  knows,  was  very  freely  imputed  both  at  the  time  and 
afterwards  to  interested  and  ambitious  motives.  It  is  hard  to 
understand  on  what  ground  the  same  imputation  might  not  have 
been  sustained  in  the  case  of  the  corresponding  conversion  of 
Lord  John.  The  obvious  truth  is  that  they  were  both  of  tliem 
too  clear-sighted  not  to  perceive  that  events  had,  at  last,  shown 
that  Cobden  and  his  friends  were  in  the  right,  and  that  the  time 
had  come  for  admitting  it.  Lord  John  Russell's  adhesion  male 
the  victory  of  the  League  certain.  Mr.  Bright  happened  to  be  on 
the  platform  at  a  railway  station  in  Yorkshire,  as  Lord  John 
Russell  passed  through  on  his  way  from  the  north  to  Osborne. 
He  stepped  into  the  carriage  for  a  few  moments.     "  Your  letter," 


^ 


228  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1845. 

said  Mr.  Bright,  "  has  now  made  the  total  and  immediate  repeal 
of  the  Corn  Law  inevitable ;  nothing  can  save  it."  The  letter  had 
in  fact  done  no  less  than  this. 

/  Immediately  on  its  publication  Sir  Kobert  Peel  summoned  his 
Cabinet.  His  view  bad  been  that  Parliament  ought  to-be  called 
together,  on  the  assumption  that  the  measure  of  relief  which  he 
was  prepared  to  introduce  would  virtually  compel  a  reconsidera- 
tion of  the  whole  question  of  Protection.  After  the  Edinburgh' 
Letter  he  considered  that  this  step  would  appear  to  be  a  servile 
acquiescence  in  the  views  of  the  leader  of  the  Opposition.  Still 
he  was  prepared  to  stand  to  his  post,  and  to  run  the  risk  of  this 
reproach,  provided  that  his  colleagues  were  unanimous.  They 
were  not  so.  Lord  Stanley  was  intractable,  and  others  in  the 
Government  were  nearly  as  hostile.  Thinking,  therefore,  that 
he  should  i'ail  in  the  attempt  to  settle  the  question,  and  that  after 
vehement  contests  and  the  new  combinations  that  would  be 
formed,  probably  worse  terms  would  be  made  than  if  some  one 
else  were  to  undertake  the  settlement  of  the  question,  the  Min- 
ister felt  it  his  duty  to  resign.  Tliat  event  took  place  on  the  5th 
of  December.  For  a  fortnight  the  country  remained  without  a 
responsible  Administration. 

The  share  of  the  League  in  this  startling  catastrophe  did  not 
escape  Cobden's  eye.  The  prospect  of  famine  in  Ireland  had  no 
sooner  become  definite,  than  the  League  at  once  prepared  for 
action.  Before  the  end  of  October,  and  before  the  first  of  the 
Cabinet  Councils,  they  held  a  great  meeting  of  many  thousands 
of  persons  at  Manchester,  and  announced  a  series  of  meetings  in 
the  other  great  towns  of  the  kingdom.  The  Ministers  were  quite 
aware  what  this  meant,  and  that  they  could  not  face  it.  Sir 
James  Graham  warned  Peel  that  the  Anti-Corn-Law  ferment  was 
about  to  commence.  It  would,  he  said,  be  the  most  formidable 
movement  in  modern  times.  There  was  a  pause  for  a  few  days 
during  the  deliberations  of  the  Government,  because  everybody 
expected  that  each  successive  mail  would  carry  to  him  the  wel- 
come decision  of  the  Cabinet  that  the  ports  had  been  already 
opened.  And  why  were  they  not  opened  ?  asked  Cobden.  Be- 
cause the  League  was  known  to  be  strong  enough  to  prevent 
them  from  being  shut  again.  If  there  had  been  no  Anti-Corn- 
Law  League  in  the  middle  of  November,  the  ports  would  have 
been  opened  a  month  ago.  It  was  because  they  knew  well  in 
the  Cabinet,  and  because  the  landlords  knew  well,  that  the  ques- 
tion of  total  and  immediate  repeal  of  the  Corn  Law  was  at  stake, 
that  they  were  ready  to  risk,  like  desperate  gamblers,  all  that 
might  befall  during  the  next  six  months,  rather  than  part  with 
that  law.^   When  the  Cabinets^  came  to  an  end  without  any  action 

1  Speeches,  i.  328.     Nov.  13,  1845. 


^T.41.]  THE  AUTUMN   OF  1845.  229 

being  taken,  then  genuine  alarm  spread  through  the  country,  and 
the  storm  of  agitation  began  in  good  earnest.  People  knew  pretty 
well  where  the  difficulty  lay.  They  were  told  that  it  was  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  and  Lord  Stanley  who  had  decided  that  the 
people  of  England  and  Ireland  should  not  be  allowed  to  feed 
themselves.  Cobden  went  to  a  great  gathering  at  Birmingham 
(November  13th).  If  I  mistake  not,  he  said,  you  have  tried  the 
metal  of  the  noble  warrior  before  in  Birmingham.  The  Duke  is 
a  man  whom  all  like  to  honor  for  his  high  courage,  his  firmness 
of  resolve,  his  indomitable  perseverance.  "  But  let  me  remind 
him,"  cried  Cobden,  amid  a  storm  of  strenuous  and  persistent 
approval,  "  tliat  notwithstanding  all  his  victories  in  the  field,  he 
never  yet  entered  into  a  contest  with  Englishmen  in  which  he 
was  not  beaten."  Even  the  Edinburgh  Letter,  in  spite  of  Cobden's 
trust  in  the  high  integrity  of  the  writer,  did  not  disarm  his  vigi- 
lance. The  letter  had  transformed  Lord  John  "  from  the  most 
obscure  into  the  most  popular  and  prominent  man  of  the  day." 
But  the  Whig  party  was  nothing  without  the  Free-traders.  The 
Tory  party  was  broken  to  atoms  by  the  rupture  among  their 
leaders.  The  League  alone  stood  erect  and  aloft  amid  the  ruins 
of  the  factions.^ 

The  activity  of  the  League  was  incessant.  Now  that  their 
question  had  become  practically  urgent,  and  an  occasion  for  the 
fall  of  ministries  and  the  strife  of  parties,  public  interest  in  their 
proceedings  acquired  a  new  keenness.  "  I  had  reckoned  upon 
getting  home  on  Saturday,"  Cobden  writes  to  his  wife  from  Stroud 
(Dec.  4),  "but  Lord  Ducie  has  put  the  screw  upon  us.  We  have 
no  alternative  but  to  sleep  at  his  house  on  Saturday  night,  in  or- 
der to  attend  a  meeting  on  the  afternoon  at  his  neighboring  town 
of  Wooton-under-Edge.  We  could  not  resist  his  appeal.  This 
throws  me  out  in  my  plans,  and  I  shall  not  see  you  till  Wednes- 
day. We  shall  go  up  to  London  on  Sunday  afternoon  to  sleep 
there,  and  meet  Villiers  and  others  for  a  talk,  and  on  Monday  we 
shall  go  to  Notts,  next  day  to  Derby,  and  on  Wednesday  home. 
The  Times  newspaper  of  to-day,  which  has  just  come  to  hand 
here,  reports  that  the  Government  has  determined  to  call  Parlia- 
ment together  the  first  Aveek  in  January,  and  propose  total  re- 
peal I^  If  this  be  true,  the  day  of  my  emancipation  is  nearer 
than  I  expected.  But  we  must  be  on  our  guard,  and  not  expect 
too  much  from  the  Government.     They  will  attempt  to  cheat  us 

1  Speeches,  i.  349.     Dec.  17. 

2  The  publication  of  the  Cabinet  secret  made  a  wonderful  stir  at  the  time.  The 
Standard  and  the  Herald  denounced  it  as  an  atrocious  fabi'ication.  But  the  Times 
stuck  to  its   text,  and  laughed  at  the  two  "melancholy  prints"  who  had  been 

'hobbling  about  the  Corn  Laws  to  the  very  last,"  unconscious  that  the  repeal  of 
le  Co      ' 
about.' 


1 


V 


230  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1845. 

yet.  Our  meetings  are  everywhere  gloriously  attended.  There 
is  a  perfect  unanimity  among  all  classes ;  not  a  syllable  about 
Chartism  or  any  other  ism,  and  not  a  word  of  dissent.  Bright 
and  I  are  almost  off  our  legs,  five  days  this  week  in  crowded 
meetings." 

"Bristol,  Dec.  5,  1845.  —  I  slept  last  night  at  James  Ehoades's, 
and  had  many  kind  inquiries  and  invitations.  We  had  a  very 
delightful  meeting  at  Bath  in  a  splendid  Town  Hall,  the  Mayor 
in  the  chair.  We  are  having  meetings  every  night,  and  I  see  no 
other  prospect  now  but  to  run  the  gauntlet  every  night  till  the 
meeting  of  Parliament.  But  I  hope  we  are  getting  to  the  death- 
struggle.  Have  yon  seen  Punch  with  me  on  horseback  and  Lord 
John  offering  to  hold  the  horse,  and  also  as  the  shadow  when  Peel 
is  opening  the  gate  of  monopoly." 

"London,  Dec.  15,  1845.  —  We  have  had  a  good  meeting  in  the 
City  to-day.  The  knowing  people  say  that  they  have  never  seen 
so  large  and  imanimous  a  gathering.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the 
City  will  return  four  Free-traders  at  the  next  election.  By  the 
way,  I  don't  hear  anything  decided  about  the  decision  of  the  Gov- 
ernment question.  People  begin  to  doubt  whether  Lord  John 
will  form  an  Administration  after  all.  Some  knowing  folks  say 
Peel  will  be  sent  for  again." 

"London,  Dec.  13.  {To  George  Comhe.)  —  Politics  are  like  a 
magic-lantern  just  now,  every  day  brings  some  new  and  unlooked- 
for  change.  What  a  righteous  retribution  has  fallen  upon  the  late 
Ministry !  The  men  who  passed  the  present  Corn  Law  in  the 
face  of  starving  millions  in  the  spring  of  1842  have  been  driven 
from  powder  and  place  by  their  own  sliding  scale !  May  their 
successors  profit  by  the  example  !  There  is  still  a  great  struggle 
before  us,  but  we  will  beat  the  unrighteous  few  who  wish  to  profit 
by  the  sufferings  of  the  many." 

Two  days  after  Cobden  had  been  talking  to  the  people  of  Bir- 
mingham in  a  triumphant  strain  about  the  League  standing  erect 
amid  the  ruins  of  the  factions,  he  had  an  opportunity  of  measur- 
ing the  estimate  in  which  he  was  held  by  one  at  least  of  the 
factions.  Sir  Kobert  Peel  resigned  on  the  5th  of  December.  The 
Queen  sent  for  Lord  John  Russell,  and  commissioned  him  to  form 
an  Administration.  Lord  John  wrote  two  letters  to  Cobden  on  the 
^  same  day.  In  the  first,  he  gave  the  leader  of  the  body  which  had 
shaken  down  a  great  Ministry  and  compelled  an  important  revo- 
lution in  policy,  a  provisional  invitation  to  take  one  of  the  hum- 
blest posts  in  the  ministerial  hierarchy  :  — 

"Chesham  Place,  Dec.  19,  1845. 

"Dear  Sir,  —  I  do  not  expect  that  I  shall  be  able  to  form 
an  Administration.     If  I  should,  however,  on  this  occasion  or  a 


j:t.41.]  the  autumn  of  1845.  231 

future  one,  I  sliall  ask  you  to  assist  me  by  accepting  the  office  of 
Vice-President  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  Lord  Clarendon  being  the 
President,  and  the  Vice-President  having  to  represent  the  depart- 
ment in  the  House  of  Commons. 

I  remain,  yours  faithfully, 

.  J.  EUSSELL." 

The  reader  will  smile  at  this  proposal,  when  he  thinks  of  the 
composition  of  Liberal  Governments  since  the  death  of  Lord 
Palmerston.  The  difference  between  then  and  now  marks  the 
decay  of  Whig  predominance  within  the  five-and-thirty  years  that 
have  intervened.  Cobden's  reply  to  the  unflattering  offer  might 
have  been  foreseen.  There  is  little  doubt  that  it  would  have  been 
the  same,  even  if  the  offer  had  been  of  a  more  serious  kind. 

"Manchester,  Dec.  20,  1845. 

"  Dear  Lord  John,  —  I  feel  greatly  honored  by  the  offer  of  the 
office  of  Vice-President  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  in  the  event  of  your 
being  able  to  form  an  Administration.  In  preferring  to  remain 
at  my  post  as  the  out-of-doors  advocate  of  Free  Trade,  I  am 
acting  from  the  conviction  that  I  can  render  you  more  efficient 
assistance  in  carrying  out  our  principle  by  retaining  my  present 
position,  than  by  entering  your  Government  in  an  official  capacity. 
Again  assuring  you  how  highly  I  esteem  this  expression  of  your 
confidence, 

I  remain,  dear  Lord  John, 

Most  faithfully  yours, 

KiCHARD   COBDEN." 

This  reply  crossed  the  second  note  which  Lord  John  Russell 
had  written  to  him  on  the  previous  day  :  — 

"Z)gc.  19,  1845. 

"  Dear  Sir,  —  In  consequence  of  what  I  wrote  this  morning,  I 
now  write  to  inform  you  that  I  have  not  been  able  to  form  a 
Ministry. 

"  All  those  who  were  to  be  my  colleagues  had  agreed  to  the 
total  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws.  Other  differences  on  another  sub- 
ject have  caused  our  failure. 

I  remain,  yours  faithfully, 

J.  Russell." 

The  differences  which  were  the  cause  of  failure  were  with  Lord 
Grey.^     He  objected  to  Lord  Palmerston  as  Foreign  Secretary,  v/ 

1  The  Lord  Howiok  of  the  previous  chapter.  He  had  become  a  peer  on  the  death 
of  his  father  in  July,  1845.    The  seat  which  he  then  vacated  at  Sunderland  was  won 


l/ 


232  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1845. 

The  intrigue,  says  one  who  was  very  competent  to  judge  such 
matters,  was  neither  contrived  with  dexterity  nor  conducted  with 
temper,  but  it  extricated  the  Whig  leader  from  an  embarrassing 
position.^  Lord  John  Eussell's  plea  was  not  only  that  in  face  of 
the  risks  to  be  encountered  unity  was  indispensable,  but  that  as 
Lord  Grey  was  among  the  first  of  his  party  who  declared  for  com- 
plete Free  Trade  in  corn,  it  would  be  unjustifiable  to  attempt  to 
carry  it  without  him.  Viewed  from  this  distance  of  time,  and  in 
the  light  of  the  present  decline  of  the  Whig  caste,  the  plea,  it 
must  be  confessed,  is  one  of  singular  tenuity.  No  one  doubts  the 
sincerity  either  of  Lord  John's  attempt  to  form  a  government, 
pr  of  his  honest  acquiescence  in  its  failure.  It  was  obviously 
much  easier  for  Sir  Eobert  Peel  to  settle  the  Corn  question, 
because  he  would  have  the  votes  of  the  AVhigs  and  the  Free- 
traders, as  well  as  that  of  a  large  body,  if  not  the  majority,  of  his 
usual  supporters.  It  was  not  certain  that  Lord  John  could  have 
settled  it,  for  the  simple  reason  that  many  of  the  Conservatives, 
especially  in  the  House  of  Lords,  would  have  declined  to  follow 
him  in  a  policy  which  they  hardly  persuaded  themselves  to  accept 
from  Wellington  and  Peel. 

On  the  failure  of  his  rival.  Sir  Eobert  Peel  went  to  Windsor, 
withdrew  his  resignation,  and  returned  to  London,  having  already 
resumed  the  functions  of  the  First  Minister  of  the  Crown.  He 
hoped  by  speaking  to  his  colleagues  from  the  point  of  a  definitely 
accepted  position,  to  secure  the  support  of  those  who  had  dis- 
sented from  him  at  the  beginning  of  the  month.  One  at  least  of 
the  survivors,  who  was  in  a  position  to  know  Peel's  mind  at  this 
moment,  holds  it  for  certain  that  the  Minister  returned  to  town 
in  the  afternoon  of  the  20th,  in  full  confidence  that  he  would 
carry  his  party  with  him  in  the  tremendous  step  which  he  had 
resolved  to  take.  Lord  Stanley  withdrew  at  once,^  but  Peel  per- 
sisted in  thinking  that  the  schism  would  end  there.  It  was  not 
many  weeks  before  he  found  out  his  mistake.  Thirty  years  after 
these  events,  when  Peel's  bitterest  assailant  had  by  a  singular 
destiny  raised  himself  to  the  height  of  power  from  which  Peel 
was  now  looking  down  upon  him,  he  made  an  interesting  remark 
on  a  criticism  that  had  been  published  upon  his  career.     "  The 

by  Mr.  Hudson,  the  Railway  King,  against  Colonel  Perronet  Thompson.  Cobden 
spoke  with  sufficient  pungency  of  the  victorious  candidate  soon  afterwards.  See 
Speeches,  i.  312,  313. 

^  Mr.  Disraeli's  Lord  George  Bentinck,  p.  23. 

2  Lord  Stanley's  place  at  the  Colonial  Office  was  taken  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  who 
had  left  the  Ministry  under  circumstances  already  described  (p.  219).  He  had 
no  seat  in  Parliament  during  the  important  session  of  1846,  having  resigned  New- 
ark, for  which  he  had  been  returned  by  the  Duke  of  Newcastle.  The  Duke  Avas 
one  of  the  stoutest  opponents  of  Free  Trade,  successfully  using  all  his  influence 
to  secure  the  defeat  in  North  Notts  of  his  own  son,  whom  Peel  now  promoted  to 
the  office  of  Irish  Secretary  and  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet. 


^T.41.]  THE   AUTUMN   OF   1845.  233 

writer,"  said  Lord  Beaconsfield,  "  fails  to  do  justice  to  a  striking 
distinction  in  my  political  history.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  in 
passing  Catholic  Emancipation,  and  Sir  Kobert  Peel  in  repealing 
the  Corn  Laws,  conceded  necessary  measures  of  progress,  but  tJiey 
broke  up  the  party.  I  passed  Household  Suffrage,  but  I  kept  the 
party  together  and  brought  it  into  power."  It.  has  often  been 
contended  by  contemporaries  with  good  information  as  to  the 
state  of  things,  that  Peel  would  have  been  as  successful  as  Mr. 
Disraeli  afterwards  was,  in  getting  his  party  through  an  awkward 
gap,  if  he  had  only  consented  to  call  them  together  and  had  can- 
didly laid  before  them  the  political  considerations  on  which  his 
new  policy  was  founded.  Those  who  hold  this  opinion  are  possi- 
bly right.  It  is,  however,  easy  to  perceive  that  Peel's  situation 
was  distinguished  by  two  fatal  peculiarities.  One  was  that  he 
had  gone  through  the  same  process  before :  he  had  already  done 
by  Protestantism  as  he  was  now  doing  by  Protection;  he  had 
suddenly  carried  out  a  policy  of  which  he  had  been  the  declared 
and  conspicuous  opponent.  It  was  the  champion  of  Protestant- 
ism and  the  Church,  who  had  repealed  the  Test  and  Corporation 
Acts,  who  had  carried  Catholic  Emancipation,  who  had  increased 
the  Maynooth  Grant,  and  who  was  believed  to  be  meditating  the 
endowment  of  the  Irish  priests.  Feats  of  this  kind  do  not  bear 
repetition.  In  the  second  place,  it  was  comparatively  easy  to 
persuade  the  Conservatives  to  assent  to  a  lower  franchise,  because 
few  of  them  in  their  hearts  believed  that  any  manipulation  of  the 
suffrage  would  take  away  from  them  anything  which  they  really 
valued.  Very  many  of  them,  on  the  other  hand,  did  believe 
firmly  that  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  would  take  away  from 
them  their  rents,  which  they  valued  extremely.  Political  plausi- 
bilities will  reconcile  men  to  everything,  save  the  deprivation  of 
their  property.  It  seems  doubtful  then  whether  Sir  Robert  Peel 
could  under  any  circumstances  have  prevailed  upon  his  party  to ' 
follow  him.  It  is  not  to  their  dishonor  that  it  should  have  been 
so.  The  Minister  was  honestly  convinced,  but  the  party  was  not. 
Even  Cobden,  when  looking  at  the  battle  from  a  distance,  thought 
that  it  would  be  wrong  *'  that  the  House  which  was  elected  to 
maintain  Protection  should  abandon  its  pledges  and  do  the  very 
reverse."  Long  afterwards,  when  Peel's  Memoirs  were  given  to 
the  world,  Cobden  still  held  that  there  would  be  "  much  that  is 
difficult  to  reconcile  in  his  conduct  in  this  question,  after  every- 
thing is  said  and  confessed  that  he  can  urge  in  his  defence."  ^ 
The  simplest  explanation  is  the  true  one.  It  is  a  mistake  to 
assume  that  because  Peel  was  a  great  parliamentary  commander, 
he  had  been  mastered  by  the  parliamentary  vice  of  measuring 

1  Letter  to  J.  Parkes,  May  26,  1856. 


234  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1845. 

national  welfare  by  the  conveniences  of  his  party  or  the  main- 
tenance of  a  majority  in  a  division.  A  colleague  of  Sir  Eobert 
Peel  in  this  Administration,  who  lias  had  unrivalled  opportunities 
of  seeing  great  public  personages,  speaks  of  him  as  the  most 
"  laboriously  conscientious "  man  that  he  has  ever  known.^  It 
was  his  conscience  that  had  become  involved  in  the  change  of 
commercial  policy.  He  could,  as  he  believed,  and  as  he  after- 
wards told  Cobden  himself,  have  parried  the  power  of  the  League 
for  three  or  four  years.  But  he  had  come  to  the  conviction  tliat 
the  maintenance  of  restriction  was  both  unsound  and  dangerous, 
was  not  only  impolitic  but  unjust.  It  was  impossible  for  him  to 
conceal  his  conviction,  or  to  act  as  if  it  did  not  exist.  Confidence 
in  public  men,  he  said,  is  shaken  when  they  change  their  opin- 
ions, but  confidence  ought  to  be  much  more  shaken  when  public 
men  have  not  the  courage  to  change  their  course  when  convinced 
of  theif  error.  But  why  did  he  not  consult  political  decorum  by 
allowing  Lord  John  Russell  to  carry  repeal,  or  at  least  by  taking 
the  opinion  of  the  country  ?  ^  Because  Lord  John  could  not  have 
carried  repeal;  and  Peel  could  neither  see  any  advantage  in  inde- 
cision or  irrational  delay,  nor  could  he  admit  the  incompetency 
of  the  present  Parliament  to  deal  with  that,  as  with  every  other 
object  of  public  concern.^ 

"  I  have  reason  to  believe,"  said  Cobden  afterwards, "  that  some 
discussions  which  I  raised  in  the  House  with  a  view  to  proving 
that  the  agriculturists  themselves  were,  as  a  whole,  injured  by 
Protection,  gave  him  some  confidence  in  the  practicability  of  a 
change  of  policy."  This  may  well  have  been  so.  The  speech  in 
which  Peel  announced  and  vindicated  the  new  policy,  is  little 
more  than  an  echo  of  Cobden's  Parliamentary  speeches  of  1844 
and  1845,  and  this  accounts  for  the  extraordinary  prominence 
which  he  afterwards  gave  in  so  remarkable  a  manner  to  Cobden's 
share  in  what  was  done.  Peel  has  explained  the  course  along 
which  his  mind  was  travelling.  His  confidence  in  the  necessity 
of  Protection  was  lessened  by  the  experiment  of  1842.  He  felt 
from  the  first  the  increasing  difficulty  of  applying  to  articles  of 

1  "Allowing  for  differences  in  grasp  and  experience,"  he  went  on,  "the  Prince 
Consort  was  in  this  respect  of  the  same  type." 

2  Mr.  Disraeli  dwelt  much  on  a  certain  inconsistency  on  this  point.  Peel  always 
said  that  he  felt  that  he  was  not  the  person  who  ought  to  j)ropose  repeal  ;  and  he 
repudiated  as  a  foul  calumny  the  assertion  that  he  wished  to  interfere  in  the  settle- 
ment of  the  question  by  Lord  John  Russell.  But,  asked  Mr.  Disraeli,  what  was  it  but 
your  wish  to  interfere  in  this  manner  which  broke  up  your  Cabinet  at  the  beginning 
of  December  ?  As  Peel  expressly  said  that  it  was  only  the  refusal  of  his  colleagues 
to  assent  to  repeal  which  prevented  him  from  remaining  in  office  on  the  platform 
of  the  Edinburgh  Letter,  Mr.  Disraeli's  charge,  so  far  as  it  goes,  cannot  be  satisfac- 
torily met. 

8  Tamworth  Letter,  1847.  For  other  reasons  see  Peel's  letter  to  Cobden,  below, 
p.  266.  . 


^T.41.]  THE  AUTUMN  OF  1845.  235 

food  the  principles  which  had  been  applied  to  so  many  other  arti- 
cles. Later  experiments  pointed  in  the  same  way.  Certain 
important  articles  of  agricultural  produce  were  now  admitted  at 
low  rates.  Among  these  were  oxen,  sheep,  cows,  salted  and  fresh 
meat.  A  chorus  of  sinister  prophecy  rose  from  the  injured  inter- 
ests. There  was  even  a  panic.  Forced  sales  of  stock  took  place. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  compete  with  the  foreign  grazier. 
Meat  would  be  reduced  to  threepence  a  pound.  The  falsification 
of  these  prophecies,  as  Peel  reminded  his  constituents  after  his 
fall,  was  destined  to  have  a  great  effect  on  the  course  of  public 
opinion.  People  began  to  be  less  apprehensive  of  the  probable 
consequences  of  a  more  liberal  intercourse  in  other  articles  of 
agricultural  produce.^ 

Then  he  perceived  an  increase  of  consumption  of  articles  of  first 
necessity,  much  more  rapid  than  the  increase  in  population,  and 
this  greatly  augmented  the  responsibility  of  undertaking  to  regu- 
late the  supply  of  food  by  legislative  restraints.  It  greatly 
aggravated,  moreover,  the  peril  of  these  restraints  in  the  case  of 
any  sudden  check  to  prosperity.  ^ 

Besides  these  considerations,  Peel  says  that  his  faith  in  restric- 
tions on  the  importation  of  corn  had  been  weakened  by  general 
reasoning ;  by  many  concurring  proofs  that  the  wages  of  labor  do 
not  vary  with  the  price  of  corn ;  by  serious  doubts  whether,  in 
the  present  condition  of  the  country,  the  present  plenty  were  not 
insured  for  the  future  in  a  higher  degree  by  free  intercourse  in 
corn,  than  by  restrictions  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  domestic 
agriculture.  Clear  as  all  this  is  to  a  generation  whose  vision  is 
not  obscured  by  the  passions  of  contemporaries,  resentment  and 
suspicion  at  the  time  were  emotions  that  might  have  been 
expected.  It  speedily  became  certain  that  they  were  violent 
enough  to  endanger  the  new  policy,  to  wreck  the  party,  and  to 
overthrow  forever  the  great  Minister  who  had  been  its  chief 

Meanwhile  the  League  made  ready  to  give  him  effective  sup-/ 
port.     Whatever  may  have  been  the  case  with  Sir  Robert  Peel  \ 
himself,  it  is  certain  that  other  people  were  afraid  of  the  opera-  \ 
tions  of  the  League.     It  was  this  confederation  which  kept  both 
the  Whig  advocates  of  a  fixed  duty  and  the  Protectionist  advo- 
cates of  the  existing  law  in  order.     In  the  last  week  in  the  year 
a  meeting  was  held  at  Manchester,  at  which  it  was  resolved  to 
raise  the  enormous  sum  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  money  for  the 
purposes  of  agitation.     The  scene  has  often  been  described,  how 
one  man  after  another  called  out  in  quick  succession,  "  A  thou- 
sand pounds  for  me  ! "    "A  thousand  pounds  for  us  ! "  and  so  forth, 
until,  in  less  than  a  couple  of  hours,  sixty  thousand  pounds  had 

1  Memoirs,  ii.  103. 

2  Tamworth  Letter  of  1847,  in  Memoirs,  ii.  106, 


\y 


236  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1845. 

been  subscribed  on  the  spot.  There  were  twenty-three  persons 
or  firms  who  put  down  one  thousand  pounds  each,  and  twenty-five 
persons  half  as  much.  Cobden,  who  was  always  received  at  every 
public  gathering  during  this  stirring  crisis  with  an  indescribable 
vehemence  of  sympathy  and  applause,  addressed  a  few  words  to 
the  excited  and  resolute  men  before  him.  "This  meeting,"  he 
said,  "  will  afford  to  any  Administration  the  best  possible  support 
in  carrying  out  its  principles.  If  Sir  Robert  Peel  will  go  on  in  an 
intelligible  and  straightforward  course,  he  will  see  that  there  is 
strength  enough  in  the  country  to  support  him ;  and  I  should  not 
be  speaking  the  sentiments  of  the  meeting,  if  I  did  not  say  that 
if  he  takes  the  straightforward,  honest  course,  he  will  have  the 
support  of  the  League  and  the  country  as  fully  and  as  cordially 
as  any  other  Prime  Minister."  ^ 

At  this  time  circumstances  naturally  began  to  work  a  complete 
/  change  in  Cobden's  attitude  towards  Sir  Robert  Peel.  Three 
weeks  before,  when  the  Minister  left  office,  Cobden  had  allowed 
the  excitement  of  the  hour  to  betray  him  into  public  expressions 
of  exultation,  wdiich  w^ere  almost  ferocious  in  their  severity.  Miss 
Martineau  has  explained  how  this  fierce  outburst  shocked  some 
of  his  friends.  They  appear,  as  has  already  been  mentioned  in 
another  connection  (p.  139),  to  have  used  the  friends'  privilege  of 
dealing  very  faithfully  with  him.  Cobden  had  speedily  become 
conscious  of  his  error.  One  of  those  who  remonstrated  with  him 
was  his  old  friend,  George  Combe,  to  whom  he  replied  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

"  It  was  wrong  to  exult  in  Peel's  fall,  and  yet  the  scene  of  my 
indiscretion  was  calculated  to  throw  me  off  my  guard,  and  give 
my  feelings  for  a  moment  the  mastery  of  my  judgment.  I  was 
speaking  in  the  face  of  nearly  the  entire  adult  male  population  of 
Stockport,  whose  terrible  sufferings  in  1841,  when  Peel  took  the 
government  from  the  Whigs  to  maintain  the  very  system  w^hich 
was  starving  them,  were  fresh  in  my  memory.  The  new^s  of  the 
retirement  of  the  Peel  Ministry  reached  Stockport  a  couple  of 
hours  before  the  meeting  took  place.  When  it  was  announced, 
the  whole  audience  sprang  up,  and  gave  three  times  three  cheers. 
I  was  quite  taken  aback,  and  out  came  that  virulent  attack  upon 
Peel,  for  which  I  have  been  gently  rapped  on  the  knuckles  by 
Miss  Martineau,  yourself,  and  many  other  esteemed  correspond- 
ents. It  was  an  unpremeditated  ebullition.  Tell  your  good 
brother  I  wall  keep  a  more  watchful  guard  over  the  old  serpent 
that  is  within  me  for  the  future.  You  must  not  judge  me  by 
what  I  say  at  these  tumultuous  public  meetings."  ^ 

1  See  Prentice's  History  of  the  League,  ii.  415. 

2  To  G.  Combe.  Manchester,  Dec.  29,  1845.  See  Miss  Martineau's  Autobiogra- 
phy, ii.  259-262. 


JEt.41.]  the  autumn  OF  1845.  237 

The  rest  of  this  letter,  describing  his  feelings  about  public  life, 
has  been  given  in  a  preceding  chapter  (p.  139).  In  a  second  let- 
ter^  replying  we  may  suppose  to  a  request  of  Combe's  that  he 
might  be  allowed  to  show  the  first  to  some  of  their  common 
friends,  Cobden  referred  fiercely  enough,  as  he  had  previously 
done  in  public,  to  the  extremely  painful  incident  of  1843 :  it  has 
been  already  described  in  its  place.^ 

"  You  are  at  liberty  to  make  any  use  you  please  of  that  let- 
ter of  mine,  and  I  really  feel  gratified  and  proud  that  you  take 
so  much  interest  in  preserving  for  me  the  good  opinion  of  those 
whose  esteem  is  worth  having.  Now  let  me  add,  that  although, 
as  between  you  and  myself,  I  am  eager  to  avow  my  regret  at 
having  been  betrayed  into  a  vindictive  attack  upon  Peel,  although 
I  admit  that  Christian  principle  was  violated  in  that  speech,  and 
that  I  should  have  better  consulted  what  was  due  to  myself  if  I 
had  shown  greater  magnanimity  on  the  occasion,  still,  as  between 
any  other  looker-on  and  myself,  I  must  say  that  Peel's  atrocious 
conduct  towards  me  ouoht  not  to  be  lost  sight  of.  I  do  not  com- 
plain  of  his  insinuating  that  I  wished  to  incite  to  his  assassina- 
tion, and  hounding  on  his  party  to  destroy  me  in  the  eyes  of  the 
world.  His  cond^ict  might  have  been  excused  on  account  of  his 
state  of  mind,  from  the  recent  death  of  Drummond,  and  the  dis- 
tress and  anxiety  of  his  wife  and  daughter,  who,  I  believe, 
unnerved  him  by  their  alarm  for  his  safety.  But  although  this 
excused  him  at  the  instant,  it  did  not  atone  for  his  having  failed 
to  retract  or  explain  his  foul  charge  subsequently,  which,  in  fact, 
made  and  now  makes  it  a  deliberate  attempt  at  moral  assassina- 
tion, which  I  cannot  and  ought  not  to  forget,  and  therefore  I 
should  feel  justified  in  repeating  what  I  said  at  Covent  Garden, 
that  I  should  forfeit  my  own  respect  and  that  of  my  friends  if  I 
ever  exchanged  a  word  with  that  man  in  private."  ^ 

No  nature  was  ever  less  disposed  for  the  harboring  of  long 
resentments,  and  it  was  not  many  weeks  from  this  time  before  a  y 
curious  incident  had  the  effect  of  finally  effacing  the  last  trace  of 
enmity  between  these  two  honored  men.  A  vulgar  attack  hap- 
pened to  be  made  in  the  course  of  debate  on  the  Chairman  of  the 
League,  which  drew  a  rebuke  from  a  member  who  was  himself 
renowned  for  bitterness  of  speech  and  the  unbridled  license  of  his 
imputations.  ■  Mr.  Disraeli  defended  the  original  assailant  by  ap- 
pealing to  the  example  of  the  Prime  Minister,  who  had,  if  he  did 
not  mistake,  accused  a  member  of  the  League  of  abetting  assassina- 
tion. Sir  Eobert  Peel  immediately  rose  to  explain  that  his  inten- 
tion at  the  time  was  to  relieve  Mr.  Cobden  in  the  most  distinct 
manner  from  the  imputation  which  by  misapprehension  he  had 

^  Above,  chap,  xii.,  pp.  172-175. 

2  To  Geo.  Combe.     Manchester,  Feb.  1846. 


238  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

put  upon  him.  If  any  one  present  had  stated  to  him  that  his 
reparation  was  not  so  complete,  and  his  avowal  of  error  not  so 
unequivocal,  as  it  ought  to  have  been,  he  should  at  once  have  re- 
peated it  more  plainly  and  distinctly.  Cobden  followed,  saying 
that  Jie  had  felt,  and  the  country  had  felt,  that  the  Minister's  dis- 
avowal had  not  been  so  distinct  as  was  to  have  been  expected. 
He  was  glad  that  it  had  now  been  explicitly  made,  because  it 
gave  him  an  opportunity  of  expressing  his  own  regret  at  the  terms 
in  which  he  had  more  than  once  referred  to  Sir  Eobert  Peel. 
And  so  with  the  expression  of  a  hope  that  the  subject  might  never 
be  revived,  the  incident  came  to  an  end. 


CHAPTEE  XVI. 

REPEAL   OF  THE  CORN   LAWS   AND   FALL  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT. 

The  public  excitement  and  private  anxieties  of  the  year  which 
\y  had  just  come  to  an  end,  had  seriously  shaken  Cobden's  health. 
Before  Parliament  opened  he  was  laid  up  with  a  complicated 
affection  of  head,  ears,  and  throat,  the  result  of  laborious  speaking 
to  great  audiences  in  the  open  air  or  in  vast  halls.  He  remained 
liable  for  the  rest  of  his  life  to  deafness  and  hoarseness.  All 
through  the  Session  of  1846  he  was  out  of  health.  Fortunately, 
circumstances  had  now  taken  a  turn  which  no  longer  demanded 
much  more  from  him  than  silent  vigilance. 

A  few  days  after  the  Session  opened,  the  Prime  Minister 
announced  his  proposals.  The  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  was  to  be 
total.  But  it  was  not  to  be  immediate.  The  ports  were  not  to 
be  entirely  open  for  three  years.  During  this  interval  there  was 
to  be  a  sliding  scale,  with  a  maximum  duty  of  ten  shillings  when 
the  price  of  wheat  should  be  under  forty-eight  shillings,  and  a 
minimum  duty  of  four  shillings  when  the  price  reached  fifty-four 
shillings  a  quarter.  The  views  of  the  League  therefore  would  not 
be  fully  realized  until  February,  1849. 

The  opponents  of  the  Minister  began  to  talk  of  an  appeal  to 
the  country,  and  Cobden  addressed  himself  to  this  critical  point 
in  the  one  speech  of  any  importance  which  he  felt  called  upon  to 
make  through  the  whole  of  these  protracted  debates.  He  plied 
the  Protectionists  with  defiant  tests  of  the  national  opinion.  The 
petitions  for  repeal  had  ten  times  as  many  signatures  as  petitions 
for  Protection.  But,  they  cried,  the  most  numerously  signed  were 
fictitious.     Then  let  them  try  public  meetings.     He  challenged 


iET.42.]  REPEAL   OF  THE   CORN   LAWS.  239 

them  to  hold  a  single  public  and  open  meeting  anywhere  in  the 
land.  Then  for  parliamentary  representation.  "  I  ought  to  know," 
he  said, "  as  much  about  the  state  of  the  representation  and  of  the 
registration  as  any  man  in  this  House.  Probably  no  one  has 
given  so  much  attention  to  that  question  as  I  hav6  done,  and  I 
distinctly  deny  that  you  have  the  slightest  probability  of  gaining 
a  numerical  majority,  if  a  dissolution  took  place  to-morrow. 
Now  I  would  not  have  said  this  three  months  ago ;  but  your  party 
is  broken  up."  Four  fifths  of  the  Conservatives  from  the  towns  ;,  jjjj 
in  the  north  of  England  were  followers  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  and  fj--^^  i 
not  of  the  Protectionist  Dukes.  They  had  been  for  Free  Trade 
all  along,  but  they  had  confidence  in  the  Minister,  that  he  would 
do  what  was  necessary  at  the  proper  time.  But  let  them  suppose 
that  the  Protectionists  might  have  a  numerical  majority.  What 
would  be  the  character  of  the  minority  ?  It  would  contain  the 
whole  twenty  members  for  the  metropolis  and  the  metropolitan 
county.  Edinburgh  and  Dublin  would  follow  London.  There 
was  not  in  all  Great  Britain  a  town  of  five-and-twenty  thousand 
inhabitants,  not  even  Liverpool  or  Bristol,  which  would  not  send 
members  pledged  to  Free  Trade.  What  would  a  majority  of 
twenty  or  thirty  men  in  pocket-boroughs  and  nomination  coun- 
ties do  in  face  of  such  a  minority  as  this  ?  They  would  shrink 
a^^hast  from  the  position  in  which  they  found  themselves.  The 
members  who  came  up  under  such  circumstances  to  maintain 
the  Corn  Laws  from  their  Ripons  and  Stamfords,  Woodstocks 
and  Marlboroughs,  would  not  defend  their  views  a  day  after  they 
had  found  out  so  vast  a  moral  preponderance  of  public  opinion 
as  this.^ 

The  characteristic  of  all  Cobden's  best  speeches  was  a  just  dis- 
tribution of  facts  as  the  groundwork  of  his  reasoning,  and  this 
for  its  particular  purpose  was  one  of  his  best  speeches.  No  at- 
tempt was  made  at  the  time,  nor  has  been  made  since,  to  weaken 
his  striking  statement  of  the  condition  of  the  public  mind.  Even  \/ 
the  Prime  Minister  was  not  prepared  for  such  an  overwhelming 
force  of  opinion.  Towards  the  close  of  the  session,  when  all  was 
over.  Peel  met  Mr.  Bright  in  the  division  lobby  and  had  some 
talk  with  him.  He  had  no  conception,  he  said,  of  the  intense 
feeling  of  hatred  with  which  the  Corn  Law  had  been  regarded, 
more  especially  in  Scotland.  I 

The   first  reading  was  carried  by  a  majority  of-  337  to  240.       / 
But  an  acute  observer  gave  Cobden  what  was  perhaps  the  super- 
fluous warning,  not  to  allow  the  victory  to  throw  him  off  his  guard.       ■ 
The  difficulties  were  still  to  come,  and  they  were  very  serious. 
In  spite  of  the  extraordinary  position  in  which  they  had  been  left 
by  the  desertion  of  Peel  and  all  the  rest  of  their  leaders  in  both 

1  Speeches,  i.  No.  xxi.     Feb.  27,  1846. 


240  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

Houses  of  Parliament,  excepting  only  Lord  Stanley,  the  Protec- 
tionists were  undeniably  strong.  The  bold  and  patient  politician, 
of  whom  they  then  thought  so  lightly,  but  who  was  in  fact  the 
sustaining  genius  of  their  group,  has  described  the  steps  by  which 
they  found  new  leaders  and  a  coherent  organization.  Lord  George 
Bentinck  was  not  a  great  man,  but  then  the  most  dexterous  and 
far-seeing  of  parliamentary  manceuvrers  had  his  ear  and  was  con- 
stantly by  his  side.  Mr.  Disraeli  must  be  said  to  have  sinned 
against  light.  His  compliments  to  Peel  and  Free  Trade  in  1842 
prove  it.  Lord  George  Bentinck  formed  some  views  on  the 
merits  of  Protection  by-and-by,  but  the  first  impulse  which  moved 
him  was  resentment  at  betrayal.  It  is  easy  to  say  that  the  key 
to  his  action  was  incensed  party  spleen,  but  the  emotion  was  not 
wholly  discreditable.  One  day  he  walked  away  from  the  House  in 
company  with  a  conspicuous  member  of  the  League.  With  that 
amicable  freedom  of  remark  which  parliamentary  habits  permit 
and  nourish  even  between  the  stoutest  adversaries,  the  Leaguer 
expressed  his  wonder  that  Lord  George  Bentinck  should  fear  any 
evil  from  the  removal  of  the  duty.  "  Well,"  Lord  George  an- 
swered, "  I  keep  horses  in  three  counties,  and  they  tell  me  that  I 
shall  save  fifteen  hundred  a  year  by  free  trade.  I  don't  care  for 
that.  What  I  cannot  hear  is  being  sold."  This  was  not  the  lan- 
guage of  magnanimity  or  of  statesmanship,  but  it  aptly  expressed 
the  doofojed  angler  of  "  the  Manners,  the  Somersets,  the  Lowthers, 
and  the  Lennoxes,  the  Mileses  and  the  Henleys,  the  Buncombes 
and  the  Liddells  and  the  Yorkes,"  and  all  the  rest  of  that  host  of 
men  of  metal  and  large-acred  squires  whom  the  strange  rhapso- 
dist  of  the  band  has  enumerated  in  a  list  as  sonorous  as  Homer's 
catalogue  of  the  ships.^  These  honest  worthies  did  not  know 
much  about  the  Circle  of  the  Exchanges,  but  they  believed  that 
Free  Trade  would  destroy  rent,  and  that  the  League  was  bent  on 
overthrowing  the  Church  and  the  Throne ;  while  they  saw  for 
themselves  that  their  leader  had  become  an  apostate.  But  this 
country,  as  Cobden  said  at  the  time,  is  governed  by  the  ignorance 
of  the  country.  Their  want  of  intelligence  did  not  prevent  them 
from  possessing  a  dangerous  power  for  the  moment. 

The  majority  on  the  first  reading  was  a  hollow  and  not  an 
honest  majority,  and  the  Protectionists  were  quite  aware  of  it. 
The  remarkable  peculiarity  of  the  parliamentary  contest  was 
v/  that  not  a  hundred  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  were  in 
favor  of  total  repeal,  and  fewer  still  were  in  favor  of  immediate 
repeal.  Lord  Palmerston,  as  Cobden  wrote  to  a  friend  long 
after  these  events,  showed  unmistakable  signs  that  he  was  not 
unwilling  to  head  or  join  a  party  to  keep  a  fixed  duty,  but  he 
was  too  shrewd  to  make   such   an   attempt  when   success    was 

1  Lord  George  Bentinck,  p.  216,  ch.  xv. 


iET.42.]  REPEAL  OF  THE   CORN  LAWS.  241 

impossible.^  In  the  Upper  House  it  was  notorious  that  not  one 
peer  in  ten  was  in  his  heart  inclined  to  pass  the  Corn  Bill.  If 
the  Lords  were  to  be  coerced  into  giving  their  assent,  it  was  indis- 
pensable that  the  entire  Whig  party  in  the  Commons  should  keep 
together  and  vote  in  every  division.  It  was  undoubtedly  the  in- 
terest of  the  Whigs  to  help  Peel  to  get  the  Corn  Law  out  of  the  ^ 
way,  and  then  to  turn  him  out.  But  there  was  a  natural  tempta- 
tion to  trip  him  up  before  the  time. 

The  curious  balance  of  factions  filled  the  air  with  the  spirit  of 
intrigue,  and  until  the  very  last  there  was  good  reason  to  appre-  i/ 
hend  that  the  Peers  might  force  Peel  to  accept  the  compromise  of 
a  fixed  duty,  or  else  to  extend  the  term  for  the  expiration  of  the  ex- 
isting duty.  No  episode  in  our  history  shows  in  a  more  distress- 
ing light  the  trickery  and  chicane  which  some  thinkers  believe 
to  be  inseparable  from  parliamentary  institutions.  In  this  case, 
however,  as  in  so  many  others,  the  mischief  had  its  root  not  in 
parliamentary  institutions,  but  in  that  constitutional  paradox,  as 
perplexing  in  theory  as  it  is  equivocal  in  practice,  which  gives 
a  hereditary  chamber  the  prerogative  of  revising  and  checking 
the  work  of  the  representative  chamber. 

The  session  had  not  advanced  very  far,  before  other  dangerssx 
loomed  on  the  horizon.     The  Ministry  was  doomed  in  any  case.  ^ 
Whether  Peel  succeeded  or  failed  with  the  Corn  Bill,  nobody  at 
this  time  thought  it  possible  that  he  could  carry  on  a  Conservative 
Government  in  a  new  Parliament,  and  he  could  hardly  become       / 
the  chief  of  a  Liberal  Government.     The  question  was  whether  v 
and  how  he  should  repeal  the  Corn  Law.     Difficulties  arose  from 
a  quarter  where  they  were  not  expected.     The  misery  of  the  win-     y 
ter  in  Ireland  had  produced  its  natural  fruits  in    disorder  and 
violence.     The  Ministry  resorted  for  the  eighteenth  time  since 
the  Union  to  the  stale  device  of  a  Coercion  Bill,  that  stereotyped  ^ 
avowal — and  always  made,  strange  to  say,  without  shame  or  con- 
trition— of  the  secular  neglect  and  incompetency  of  the  English 
Government  of  Ireland.     Two  perilous  inconveniences  followed. 
The  first  was  that  the  Irish  members,  led  by  O'Connell,  persistently 
opposed  by  all  the  means  in  their  power  every  step  of  this  vio- 
lent and  shallow  policy.     It  would  have  been  ignoble  if  they  had 
done  less.     But  their  just  and  laudable  obstruction  of  the  Coer- 
cion Bill  interposed  dangerous  delays  in  the  way  of  the  Corn  Bill.  ^^ 
This,  however,  was  not  the  only  peril.     The  Coercion  Bill  laid 
tlie  train  for  a  combination  which  could  hardly  have  been  foreseen, 
but  which  was  eventually  irresistible.     Cobden  and  his  friends 
were  hostile  to  the  measure  on  the  policy  and  the  merits,  nor  in 
any  case  could  their  votes  have  saved  the  Ministry.     Lord  John 
Eussell  and  the  Whigs  had  no  objection  to  a  Coercion  Bill,  of 

1  To  J.  Parkes.     June  10,  1857. 
16 


242  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

which  for  that  matter  they  have  been  the  steadiest  patrons,  but 

they  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  pay  off  old  scores  when  the 

Minister  declared  Coercion  to  be  urgent,  and  then  actually  let  it 

slumber  for  five  months.^    Lord  George  Bentinck  discerned  very 

/early  the  elements  of  an  invincible  dilemma  and  a  promising  plot. 

/  If  the  Minister  pushed  the  Coercion  Bill,  that  would  keep  back 

*^     the   Corn   Bill.     If  he  gave  the  priority  to   the  Corn  Bill,  this 

would  prove  that  the  Coercion  Bill  was  not  urgent,  and  therefore 

ought  not  to  be  supported. 

Thus,  by  an  extraordinary  and  unparalleled  state  of  political  par- 
ties, a  measure  for  which  the  country  was  sincerely  anxious,  which 
was  confessedly  required  by  the  circumstances  of  the  moment, 
and  which  the  leader  of  the  Opposition  was  as  desirous  of  pass- 
ing as  the  Prime  Minister,  seemed  to  be  in  constant  risk  of  mis- 
carrying at  every  moment,  and  was  attended  by  every  circumstance 
of  embarrassment  alike  to  supporters  and  opponents.  The  great 
/  disadvantage  that  Cobden  saw  in  the  critical  state  of  the  Govern- 
^•^  ment  throughout  the  session  was  the  encouragement  that  it  held 
out  to  the  House  of  Lords  to  delay  Eepeal.  This  made  his  own 
course  and  that  of  the  League  all  the  clearer.  It  was  their  policy 
loudly  and  pointedly  to  denounce  all  compromise  on  the  part 
either  of  the  Minister  or  of  equivocal  friends.  Cobden  did  not 
fear  that  the  Whigs  would  take  means  to  reject  the  Bill,  for  this 
reason,  and  perhaps  for  no  loftier  one,  that  its  rejection  would 
afford  Peel  an  opportunity  of  dissolving  on  the  question ;  and  a 
dissolution,  as  Cobden  whether  rightly  or  wrongly  believed,  would 
snuff  the  Whigs  out,  obliterate  all  old  party  distinctions,  "  and 
give  Peel  a  five  years'  lease  at  the  head  of  a  mixed  progressive 
party." ^  He  was  equally  puzzled  to  understand  why  Peel  should 
press  the  Coercion  Bill  forward,  and  w^hy  the  Whigs  should  show 
such  eagerness  to  avail  themselves  of  monopolist  support  to  throw 
Peel  out.  He  could  only  explain  the  second  of  the  two  per- 
plexities, by  supposing  that  "  the  Whigs  are  hugging  the  delusion 
that  the  country  wants  them  back  in  office.  For  my  part,  I 
cannot  meet  with  anybody  whose  face  does  not  drop  like  the 
funds  at  the  bare  prospect  of  the  change." 

We  shall  see  presently  what  Peel  himself  had  to  say  to  this 

v/  idea  of  a  mixed  progressive  party.     Meanwhile,  Cobden's  dislike 

and  distrust  of  the  Whigs  was  as  intense  as  ever,  and  even  drew 

1  "We  have  an  excellent  illustration  of  the  practice  of  making  Ireland  the  shuttle- 
cock of  English  parties,  in  the  fact  that  the  Whigs  who  had  turned  out  Peel  on  the 
principle  of  Non-Coercion,  had  not  been  in  office  a  month  before  they  introduced 
an  Irish  Arms  Bill.  The  opposition,  however,  was  so  sharp  that  the  Bill  was  with- 
drawn in  a  fortnight.  This  Whig  levity  was  a  match  for  the  Tory  levity  which 
bad  declared  Coercion  urgent  in  January,  and  taken  no  steps  to  secure  it  un- 
til June. 

a  To  Mr.  Siurge.    June  10,  1846. 


iET.42.]  REPEAL  OF  THE   CORN  LAWS.  243 

upon  him  remonstrances  from  some  of  his  own  allies.  "  What  are 
the  old  Whig  party,"  he  asked  impatiently,  "going  to  do  for  us 
in  North  Notts  ?^  There  is  a  division  with  under  4000  voters, 
and  a  strong  Liberal  party.  It  was  considered  Whig  imtil  the 
base  selfishness  of  the  landlords  of  that  party  led  them  to  desert 
their  colors  there  and  in  every  other  county  upon  the  bread  ques- 
tion. My  old  friend,  Bean,  of  Nottingham,  reckoned  the  Liberal 
party  safe  upon  the  last  register,  and  it  is  improved  upon  the 
present  one.  But  he,  honest  man,  has  been  reckoning  all  Whigs 
as  Free  Traders.  Now,  however,  Peel's  plunge  must  Iiave  brought 
over  some  of  the  Tories  to  Free  Trade,  and  if  there  were  any  dis- 
position on  the  part  of  the  Whig  proprietors  to  bring  in  a  re- 
pealer, they  could  do  it  with  the  aid  or  neutrality  of  the  Peelites. 
I  look  to  the  conduct  of  the  Whigs  in  the  counties  as  the  test  of 
their  honesty  on  our  question.  Hitherto  they  have  done  nothing 
except  to  revile  and  oppose  us.  Not  a  county  has  been  gained 
to  Free  Trade  but  by  League  money,  and  at  a  terrible  cost  of 
labor  to  the  Leaguers.  I  invaded  the  West  Riding,  in  November, 
1844,  and  held  public  meetings  in  all  the  great  towns  to  rouse 
them  to  qualify  2000  votes.  Lord  Fitzwilliam  wrote  me  advising 
me  not  to  come,  as  I  should  do  more  harm  than  good !  Had  I 
followed  his  advice,  Lord  Morpeth  might  still  have  been  rusti- 
cating at  Castle  Howard.  ^  You  will  perhaps  tell  me,  that  the  f 
leaders  of  the  Whig  party  can't  control  their  old  friends  in  the  ^ 
counties  upon  the  Corn  question.  True.  But  then,  what  a  bold 
farce  is  it  now  to  attempt  to  parade  the  Whig  party  as  the  Free 
Traders  par  excellence  !  I  will  be  no  party  to  such  a  fraud  as  the 
attempt  to .  build  up  its  ruined  popularity  upon  a  question  in 
which  the  Whig  aristocracy  and  proprietors  in  the  counties  either 
take  no  interest,  or,  if  so,  only  to  resist  it.  I  see  no  advantage  but 
much  danger  to  our  cause  from  the  present  efforts  to  set  up  the 
old  party  distinctions,  and  calm  reflection  tells  me  that  isolation 
is  more  and  more  the  true  policy  of  the  League."^  This  idea 
held  strong  possession  of  him  until  the  day  of  Peel's  final  defeat 
and  resignation. 

1  Seat  vacated  by  Lord  Lincoln.     See  above,  p.  232  n. 

2  Lord  Wliarncliffe,  who  held  the  office  of  President  of  the  Council,  died  suddenly 
in  the  midst  of  the  ministerial  crisis.  Mr.  Stuart  Wortley's  consequent  elevation 
to  the  peerage  vacated  the  seat  for  the  West  Riding.  "  You  know  ' — so  Cobden 
told  the  story  three  years  later — "that  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire  is  considered 
the  great  index  of  public  opinion  in  this  country.  In  that  great  division,  at  present 
containing  37,000  voters.  Lord  Morpeth  was  defeated  on  the  question  of  Free  Tra<le, 
and  two  I'rotectionists  were  returned.  I  went  into  the  West  Riding  with  this  40.s. 
freehold  plan.  I  stated  in  every  borough  and  district  that  we  must  have  5000 
qualifications  made.  They  were  made.  .  .  .  Men  qualified  themselves  with  a  view 
of  helping  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws,  and  in  consequence  of  that  movement  Lord 
Morpeth  walked  over  the  course  at  the  next  election." —  Speeches,  ii.  494.  Nov.  26, 
1849. 

'  To  -Mr.  J.  Parkes.    Feb.  16,  1846. 


V 


244  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

Before  coming  to  that,  it  will  be  convenient  to  state  very  briefly 
the  course  of  proceedings  in  Parliament.  The  motion  was  made 
to  go  into  Committee  on  the  Eesolutions,  on  the  9th  February. 
Eighteen  days  later,  after  twelve  nights  of  debate,  and  after  one 
Imndred  and  three  speeches  had  been  delivered,  the  Government 
were  successful  by  a  majority  of  ninety-seven.  On  March  2,  the 
House  went  into  Committee  on  the  Resolutions,  and  Mr.  Villi<ers's 
amendment  that  Kepeal  should  be  immediate  as  well  as  total,  was 
lost  by  an  immense  majority,  barely  short  of  two  hundred.  The 
Corn  Bill  was  then  read  a  second  time  on  March  27,  by  a  ma- 
jority of  eighty-eight  in  a  House  of  five  hundred  and  sixteen  ; 
/  and  it  was  finally  carried  in  the  House  of  Commons  at  four  o'clock 

V    in  the  morning  of  May  16,  by  a  majority  of  ninety-eight  in  a 

House  of  five  hundred  and  fifty-six.     The  Lords  made  a  much 

less  effective  opposition  than,  as  is  shown  by  Cobden's  letters, 

was   commonly  expected.     The  second  reading  was   carried   by 

/    two  hundred  and  eleven  against  one  hundred  and  sixty-four,  or  a 

v^  majority  of  forty-seven.  Amendments  were  moved  in  Committee, 
but  none  of  them  met  with  success,  and  Lord  Stanley,  who  led 
the  Protectionists,  declined  to  divide  the  House  on  the  third 
reading.  The  Conservatives  acted  on  the  policy  laid  down  by 
Peel  himself  seven  years  before,  as  one  of  the  working  principles 
of  the  great  party  which  he  had  formed — "a  party  which,  exist- 
ing in  the  House  of  Conmions,  and  deriving  its  strength  from  the 
popular  will,  should  diminish  the  risk  and  deaden  the  shock  of 
collisions  between  the  two  deliberative  branches  of  the  legisla- 

.  i  ture."  ^  The  battle  had  been  fought  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
I  and  as  it  had  been  lost  there,  then,  by  Peel's  salutary  rule,  the 
\  defeat  was  accepted  as  decisive. 

This  is  the  proper  place  for  Cobden's  own  story  of  his  interests 
and  occupations  during  that  agitated  session.  We  must  not  for- 
get that  his  private  affairs  had  only  been  provisionally  arranged 
in  the  previous  autumn,  and  that  they  were  as  gloomy  as  his 
public  position  was  triumphant.  Before  giving  the  shorter  cor- 
respondence, written  from  day  to  day  to  his  wife  and  his  brother, 
it  will  be  convenient  to  give  three  longer  letters,  affording  a  more 
general  view  of  what  at  this  time  was  engaging  his  thoughts. 

March  7,  1846.  {To  G.  Comhe.)  —  "I  am  pretty  well  recovered 
from  my  local  attack ;  a  little  deafness  is  all  that  remains.  But 
the  way  in  which  I  was  prostrated  by  an  insignificant  cold  in  my 
head  has  convinced  me  (even  if  my  doctor  had  not  told  it)  how 
much  my  constitution  has  been  impaired  by  the  excitement  and 
wear  and  tear  of  the  last  few  years.  The  mainspring  has  been 
overweighted,  and  I  must  resolve  upon  some  change  to  wind  up 

1  Peel's  Speech  at  Merchant  Taylors'  Hall  in  1839. 


^T.42.]  REPEAL  OF  THE   CORN  LAWS.  245 

the  machinery,  before  I  shall  be  able  to  enter  upon  any  renewed 
labors.  My  medical  friend  boldly  tells  me  that  I  ought  to  disap- 
pear from  political  life  for  a  year  or  two,  and  seek  a  different  kind 
of  excitement  in  other  scenes  abroad.  He  talks  to  me  of  the  hot 
baths  of  the  Pyrenees  as  desirable  for  such  cases  ;  of  a  low'  pulse, 
feeble  circulation,  and  a  disordered  skin,  and  he  speaks  of  a  winter 
to  be  passed  in  a  southern  latitude.  Heaven  knows  what  I  shall 
do !  But  one  thing  is  certain,  I  neither  feel  in  health  nor  spirits 
to  take  that  prominent  place  in  the  political  world  which  the 
public  voice  seems  to  be  ready  to  demand.  The  truth  is,  I  have 
gradually  and  unexpectedly  been  forced  upwards,  by  the  accident 
of  my  position  in  connection  with  a  great  principle  (which  would 
have  elevated  anybody  else  who  had  only  tenacity  of  will  enough 
to  cling  to  it),  and  I  feel,  in  the  present  state  of  my  health,  and 
from  other  private  and  domestic  considerations,  letting  alone  my 
mental  incapacity,  unable  to  pursue  the  elevated  career  wdiich  v-^ 
many  partial  friends  and  supporters  would  expect  from  me.  But 
I  am  resolved  to  give  primary  consideration  to  my  health,  and  to 
the  welfare  of  those  whom  nature  has  given  the  first  claim  to  my 
attentions.  This,  I  think,  no  one  will  deny  me.  For  I  assure 
you  that  during  the  last  five  years  so  much  have  I  been  involved 
in  the  vortex  of  public  agitation,  that  I  have  almost  forgotten  my 
own  identity  and  completely  lost  sight  of  the  comforts  and  inter- 
ests of  my  wife  and  children. 

"  Besides,  to  confess  the  truth,  I  am  less  and  less  in  love  with 
what  is  generally  called  political  life,  and  am  not  sure  that  \^ 
could  play  a  successful  part  as  a  general  politician.  Party  tram- 
mels, unless  in  favor  of  some  well-defined  and  useful  principle, 
would  be  irksome  to  me,  and  I  should  be '  restive  and  intractable 
to  those  who  might  expect  me  to  run  in  their  harness.  However, 
all  this  may  stand  over  till  we  have  really  accomplished  the  work 
which  drew  me  into  my  present  position.  I  am  afraid  our  friends 
in  the  country  are  a  little  too  confident.  The  Government  meas-  .  , 
ure  is  by  no  means  safe  with  the  Lords  yet.  They  w411  mutilate 
or  reject  it  if  they  think  the  country  will  suffer  it.  Bear  in  mind, 
if  you  please,  that  there  are  not  twenty  men  in  that  assembly  wdio 
in  their  hearts  earnestly  desire  total  repeal.  Nay,  I  am  of  opinion 
that  not  one  hundred  men  in  the  Commons  would  be  more  dis- 
posed for  the  measure,  if  they  could  obey  their  own  secret  inclina- 
tions, without  the  influence  of  outward  considerations.  Amongst 
all  the  converts  and  conformers,  I  class  Sir  Robert  Peel  as  one  of 
the  most  sincere  and  earnest.  I  have  no  doubt  he  is  acting  from 
strong  conviction.  His  mind  has  a  natural  leaning  towards  politi- 
co-economical truths.  The  man  who  could  make  it  his  hobby  so 
early  to  work  out  the  dry  problem  of  the  currency  question,  and 
arrive  at  such  sound  conclusions,  could  not  fail  to  be  equally  able 


246  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

and  willing  to  put  in  practice  the  other  theories  of  Adam  Smith. 
It  is  from  this  that  1  rely  upon  his  not  compromising  our  princi- 
ple beyond  the  three  years.  But  I  must  confess  I  have  not  the 
same  confidence  in  Lord  John  and  the  Whigs.  Not  that  I  think 
the  latter  inferior  in  moral  sentiment,  but  the  reverse.  But  Lord 
John  and  his  party  do  not  understand  the  subject  so  well  as  Peel. 
The  Whig  leader  is  great  upon  questions  of  a  constitutional  char- 
acter, and  has  a  hereditary  leaning  towards  a  popular  and  liberal 
interpretation  of  the  Constitution.  But  his  mind  is  less  adapted 
for  the  mastery  of  economical  questions,  and  he  attaches  an  infe- 
rior importance  to  them.  Nor  does  he  weigh  the  forces  of  public 
opinion  so  accurately  as  Peel.  He  breathes  the  atmosphere  of  a 
privileged  clique.  His  sympathies  are  aristocratic.  He  is  some- 
times thinking  of  the  House  of  Kussell,  whilst  Peel  is  occupied 
upon  Manchester.  They  are  in  a  false  position ;  Peel  ought  to 
be  the  leader  of  the  middle  class,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  he  is  not 
destined  to  be  so  before  the  end  of  his  career." 

London,  March  12.  {To  Mr.  T.  Hunter)  —  "  Many  thanks  for 
your  warm-hearted  letter.  I  have  often  thought  of  you,  and  our 
good  friends.  Potter  and  Ashworth,  and  of  the  anomalous  position 
in  which  I  was  left  when  our  consultations  ended  last  autumn. 
Had  it  not  been  for  the  potato  panic,  which  dawned  upon  us 
within  a  few  weeks  after  we  came  to  the  wise  decision  respecting 
my  own  course  of  action,  I  should  then  have  been  bound  by  the 
necessity  of  circumstances  to  have  abandoned  my  public  career. 
That  providential  dispensation  opened  out  a  prospect  of  a  speedy 
termination  of  our  agitation,  which  has  not  been  disappointed.  I 
therefore  made  arrangements  of  a  temporary  kind  for  the  manage- 
ment of  my  private  concerns.  This,  I  concluded,  was  understood 
by  you  and  my  other  privy  councillors.  But  the  arrangement 
was  only  provisional ;  and  now  tliat  I  trust  we  are  really  drawing 
towards  a  virtual  settlement  of  the  Corn  question,  my  private 
concerns  again  press  upon  my  attention.  I  am  in  a  false  situation, 
and  every  day  increases  its  difficulty.  My  prominent  position 
before  the  world  leads  the  public  to  expect  that  I  shall  take  a 
leading  part  in  future  political  affairs,  for  which  I  do  not  feel  in 
health  or  spirits  to  be  equal,  and  which  private  considerations 
render  altogether  impossible. 

"  The  truth  is,  that  accident,  quite  as  much  as  any  merit  on  my 
own  part,  has  forced  me  gradually  into  a  notoriety  for  which  I 
have  not  naturally  much  taste ;  but  which,  under  all  circum- 
stances, is  a  source  of  continued  mental  embarrassment  to  me. 
How  to  escape  from  the  dilemma  has  been  for  months  the  subject 
of  cogitation  with  me.  My  own  judgment  leads  irresistibly  to 
one  solution  of  the  difficulty,  by  retiring  from  Parliament  as  soon 
as  the  Corn  question  is  safe.     I  observe  your  allusion  to  a  public 


^T.42.]  REPExiL  OF  THE   CORN  LAWS.  247 

demonstration  ;  and  the  idea  of  a  testimonial  has  reached  me 
through  so  many  channels,  that  it  would  be  affectation  to  conceal 
from  myself  that  something  of  the  kind  is  in  contemplation.  1 
am  not,  I  confess,  sanguine  about  the  success  of  such  an  effort, 
pecuniarily  speaking,  on  the  part  of  my  friends.  Public  ebulli- 
tions of  the  kind  never  realize  the  expectations  of  their  promoters, 
and  there  are  reasons  against  such  success  in  my  own  case.  Out 
of  Manchester  I  am  regarded  as  a  rich  man,  thanks  to  the  exag- 
gerations of  the  Duke  of  Richmond  and  the  Protectionists. 

"But,  besides,  there  are  others  who  have  as  good  claims  as 
myself  upon  public  consideration  for  the  labors  given  to  the  good 
cause.  I  have  been  often  pained  to  see  that  my  fame,  both  in 
England  and  on  the  Continent,  has  eclipsed  that  of  my  worthy 
fellow-laborers.  But  it  would  be  an  injustice  which  neither  1  nor 
the  public  voice  would  sanction,  if  I  were  to  reap  all  the  substan- 
tial fruits  of  our  joint  exertions,  to  the  exclusion  of  others  whose 
sacrifices  and  devotion  have  hardly  been  second  to  my  own. 

"  As  respects  my  own  feelings  on  the  sulyect  of  a  testimonial, 
although  I  see  it  in  a  different  light  after  the  work  is  done  to  that 
in  which  I  viewed  it  before,  still,  I  must  confess  that  it  is  not 
otherwise  than  a  distasteful  theme.  Were  I  a  rich  man,  or  even 
in  independent  circumstances,  I  could  not  endure  the  thoughts  of 
it.  But  when  I  think  of  my  age,  and  the  wear  and  tear  of  my 
constitution,  and  reflect  upon  the  welfare  of  those  to  whom 
Nature  has  given  the  first,  and  for  them  the  only,  claims  upon  my 
consideration,  I  do  not  feel  in  a  position  to  give  a  chivalrous 
refusal  to  any  voluntary  public  subsidy.  Like  the  poor  apothe- 
cary, my  poverty  and  not  my  will  consents.  Still,  consulting  my 
own  feelings,  I  should  like  to  be  out  of  Parliament  before  any 
demonstration  were  made.  I  could  hardly  explain  why  I  should 
prefer  this,  it  is  so  peculiarly  a  matter  of  feeling.  It  is  not  with 
a  view  to  escape  from  public  usefulness  hereafter.  I  am  aware 
that  success  in  my  Free  Trade  labors  will  invest  me  with  some 
moral  power,  which,  after  my  health  was  thoroughly  wound  up 
again  for  a  renewed  effort,  I  should  feel  anxious  to  bring  to  bear 
upon  great  questions  for  the  benefit  of  society.  But  I  have  a 
strong  and  instinctive  feeling  that  an  interregnum  in  my  public 
life  would  rather  increase  than  diminish  my  power  of  usefulness. 
Besides  and  independent  of  considerations  of  health,  I  am  not 
anxious  to  be  a  party  in  any  more  political  arrangements  during 
the  next  year  or  two.  Assuming  even  that  the  public  placed  me 
in  a  new  position,  free  from  anxieties  of  a  private  kind,  still  I 
should  shrink  from  undertaking  the  office  of  a  party  politician. 
I  do  not  think  I  should  make  a  useful  partisan,  unless  in  the 
advancement  of  a  defined  and  simple  principle.  Now  the  next 
year  will  witness  a  destruction  of  old,  and  a  combination  of  new 


u 


248  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

parties,  to  which  I  should  be  called  upon  to  give  support,  and 
probably  invited  to  take  office.  Official  life  would  not  suit  me. 
My  only  path  to  public  usefulness  is  in  pursuing  the  same  inde- 
pendent course  as  respects  parties  which  I  have  hitherto  followed. 
I  am  aware  that  others  might  take  a  different  view ;  but  still  no 
one  can  be  so  fair  a  judge  as  myself  of  that  which  involves  a 
knowledge  of  my  own  aptitude,  springing  from  private  tastes  and 
feelings. 

"  I  might  add  as  a  motive  for  leaving  Parliament,  a  growing 
dislike  for  House  of  Commons  life,  and  a  distaste  for  mere  party 
political  action.  But  this  applies  to  my  present  views  only  in  as 
far  as  it  affects  my  health  and  temporary  purposes.  It  is  a  re- 
pugnance which  might  and  ought  to  be  overcome  for  the  sake  of 
usefulness ;  and  there  are  enough  good  men  in  Parliament  who 
sacrifice  private  convenience  for  public  good,  to  compensate  for 
the  society  of  the  herd  who  are  brought  there  for  inferior  objects. 

"  I  have  now  poured  out  my  inward  thoughts  to  you  in  unre- 
served confidence  —  thoughts  which  have  not  been  committed  to 
paper  before.  And  I  do  it  with  the  fullest  satisfaction,  for  I 
know  that,  whilst  you  sympathize  with  my  feelings,  you  will 
bring  a  cool  judgment  to  my  assistance.  I  may  add  that  it  is 
premature  yet  to  consider  the  struggle  at  an  end.  The  Lords  are 
not  yet  decided  what  to  do  with  the  Government  measure.  There 
are  rumors  still  of  an  attefnpt  to  compromise.  It  is  reported  that 
Lord  Fitzwilliam  is  returning  from  Italy  to  head  a  fixed-duty 
party,  and  there  is  still  a  strong  body  in  the  Commons  anxious  for 
such  a  course.  In  fact  there  are  not  a  hundred  men  in  the  Com- 
mons, or  twenty  in  the  Lords,  who  at  heart  are  anxious  for  total 
repeal.  They  are  coerced  by  the  out-of-doors  opinion,  and  noth- 
ing but  the  dread  of  the  League  organization  enables  Peel  to 
persevere.  But  for  our  forty-shilling  freehold  bludgeons,  the  aris- 
tocracy would  have  resisted  the  Government  measure  almost  to  a 
man.  My  strongest  hopes  centre  in  Peel.  I  have  far  more  con- 
fidence in  him  than  the  Whig  leaders.  He  is  acting  from  strong 
convictions.  He  understands  politico-economical  questions  better 
than  Lord  John,  and  attaches  far  more  importance  to  sound  princi- 
ples in  practical  legislation.  He  and  Sir  James  Graham  make  no 
secret  of  their  determination  to  stand  or  fall  by  their  measure. 
Such  being  their  decision,  the  only  delay  that  can  take  place  is  in 
the  event  of  a  dissolution  ;  and  I  think  the  Lords  will  shrink  from 
such  a  desperate  and  fruitless  alternative  when  the  critical  mo- 
ment arrives." 

April  2.  (  „  ).  —  "So  far  as  I  can  control  my  future  course 
of  action,  I  am  prepared  to  do  so ;  and  the  first  step  which  duty 
requires  is  to  place  myself  in  a  private  position  at  the  earliest 
moment  when  I  can  make  the  change,  without  sacrificing  the 


^T.42.]  REPEAL  OF  THE  CORN  LAWS.  249 

public  interest  whicli  is  to  some  extent  involved  in  my  person. 
In  fact  I  should  have  long  ago  retired  into  private  life,  but  for 
this  consideration.  It  is  still  a  little  uncertain  when  we  shall  es- 
cape from  the  tenter-hooks  of  delay.  Even  if  the  Lords  pass  the 
Government  measure  without  attempts  at  mutilation,  of  which, 
by  the  way,  I  am  still  not  so  sanguine  as  many  people,  then  it 
will  be  two  months  yet  before  the  royal  hand  can  reach  the  Act 
for  the  total  repeal  of  the  Corn  Law.  Should  the  Peers  atterhpt  to 
compromise,  I  have  reason  to  feel  satisfied  that  the  Government 
will  be  firm ;  and  then  we  may  possibly  have  a  dissolution.  A 
sharp  struggle  in  the  country  would  in  all  probability  be  followed 
by  total  and  immediate  repeal,  carried  with  a  high  hand.  But, 
assuming  the  most  probable  event,  viz.  that  the  Lords  do  pass 
the  Bill,  then  my  mind  is  made  up  to  accept  tlie  Chiltern  Hun- 
dreds the  day  after  it  receives  the  royal  assent. 

"  Now,  my  dear  sir,  the  rest  must  be  left  to  the  chapter  of  fate,  / 
and  I  shall  be  prepared  to  meet  it,  come  what  may.  This  de- 
cision is  entirely  the  result  of  my  own  cogitations.  I  have  con- 
sulted nobody.  If  the  rumor  got  abroad  amongst  my  friends,  I 
should  be  persecuted  with  advice  or  remonstrance,  to  which  I 
should  be  expected  to  give  answers  involving  explanations  pain- 
ful to  me.  And  it  is  quite  marvellous  how  apt  the  newspapers 
are  to  get  raw  material  enough  for  an  on  dit  if  a  man  suffers  his 
plans  to  go  beyond  his  own  bosom.  I  could,  of  course,  make  my 
health  honestly  the  plea  for  leaving  Parliament,  and  can  show,  if 
need  be,  the  advice  of  the  first  medical  men  in  London  and  Edin- 
burgh to  justify  me  in  seeking  at  least  a  twelvemonth's  relaxation 
from  public  life. 

"  I  have  thus  given  you  an  earnest  of  my  determination  to  do 
all  that  I  can  to  acquit  myself  of  my  private  as  well  as  public 
duties.  It  has  always  been  to  me  a  spectacle  worthy  of  reproach 
to  see  a  man  sacrificing  the  welfare  of  his  own  domestic  circle  to 
the  cravings  of  a  morbid  desire  for  public  notoriety.  And  God, 
who  knows  our  hearts,  will  free  me  from  any  such  unworthy  mo- 
tives. I  was  driven  along  a  groove  by  accident,  too  fast  and  too 
far  to  retreat  with  honor  or  without  the  risk  of  some  loss  to  the  ^^ 
country ;  but  the  happiest  moment  of  my  life  will  be  that  which 
releases  me  from  the  conflicting  sense  of  rival  duties,  by  restoring 
me  again  to  private  life." 

A  few  days  later  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Edmund  Potter :  — 

"  Many  thanks  for  your  friendly  letter.  Though  I  appreciate 
your  kindness  even  where  it  restrains  you  from  writing  to  me,  let 
me  assure  you  that  your  handwriting  always  gives  me  pleasure. 
You  would  not  doubt  it,  if  you  could  have  a  peep  at  the  letters 
which  pour  in  upon  me.  I  have  sometimes  thouglit  of  giving 
William  Chambers  a  hint  for  an  amusing  paper  in  his  journal 


250  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

Tipon  the  miseries  of  a  popular  man.  First,  half  the  mad  people 
in  the  country  who  are  still  at  large,  and  they  are  legion,  address 
their  incoherent  ravings  to  the  most  notorious  man  of  the  hour. 
Next,  the  kindred  tribe  who  think  themselves  poets,  who  are  more 
difficult  than  the  mad  people  to  deal  with,  send  their  doggerel  and 
solicit  subscriptions  to  their  volumes,  with  occasional  requests  to 
be  allowed  to  dedicate  them.  Then  there  are  the  Jeremy  Diddlers 
who  begin  their  epistles  with  high-flown  compliments  upon  my 
services  to  the  millions,  and  always  wind  up  with  a  request  that 
I  will  bestow  a  trifle  upon  the  individual  who  ventures  to  lay  his 
distressing  case  before  me.  To  add  to  my  miseries,  people  have 
now  got  an  idea  that  I  am  influential  with  the  Government,  and 
the  small  place-hunters  are  at  me.  Yesterday  a  man  wrote  from 
Yorkshire,  wanting  the  situation  of  a  ganger,  and  to-day  a  person 
in  Herts  requests  me  to  procure  him  a  place  in  the  post-office. 
Then  there  are  all  the  benevolent  enthusiasts  who  have  their  pet 
reforms,  who  think  that  because  a  man  has  sacrificed  himself  in 
mind,  body,  and  estate  in  attempting  to  do  one  thing,  he  is  the 
very  person  to  do  all  the  rest.  These  good  people  dog  me  with 
their  projects.  Nothing  in  their  eyes  is  impossible  in  my  hands. 
One  worthy  man  calls  to  assure  me  that  I  can  reform  the  Church 
and  unite  the  Wesleyans  with  the  Establishment. 

"  That  zealous  and  excellent  educationalist,  Stone,  of  Glasgow, 
seized  upon  me  yesterday.  '  I  have  often  thought,'  said  he,  '  that 
Lord  Ashley  or  Mr.  Colquhoun  was  the  man  to  carry  a  system  of 
National  Education  through  Parliament.  But  they  have  not  moral 
courage ;  if  you  will  take  it  in  hand,  in  less  than  four  years  you 
will  get  a  vote  of  twenty  millions,  and  reconcile  all  the  religious 
parties  to  one  uniform  system  of  religious  education.'  I  replied 
that  I  had  tried  my  hand  on  a  small  scale  in  the  attempt  to  unite 
the  sects  in  Lancashire  in  1836,  but  that  I  took  to  the  repeal  of 
the  Corn  Laws  as  light  amusement  compared  with  the  difficult 
task  of  inducing  the  priests  of  all  denominations  to  agree  to  suffer 
the  people  to  be  educated.  The  next  time  I  meet  Dickens  or 
Jerrold,  I  shall  assuredly  give  them  a  hint  for  a  new  hero  of  the 
stage  or  the  novel, '  The  Popular  Man.' 

"  In  answer  to  your  kind  inquiries  after  my  health,  I  am  happy 
to  say  I  am  pretty  free  from  any  physical  ailment.  It  is  only  in 
my  nervous  system  that  I  am  out  of  sorts.  The  last  two  or  three 
months  have  kept  me  on  the  rack,  and  worried  me  more  than  the 
last  seven  years  of  agitation.  But  if  I  could  get  out  of  the  tread- 
mill, and  with  a  mind  at  ease  take  a  twelvemonth's  relaxation 
and  total  change  of  scene  and  climate  as  far  off  as  Thebes  or  Per- 
sepolis,  where  there  are  no  post-offices,  newspapers,  or  politicians, 
I  see  no  reason  why  I  should  not  live  to  seventy ;  for  I  have  faith 
in  my  tough  and  wiry  body  and  a  temperament  naturally  cool  and 


JEt.42.]  repeal  op  THE  CORN  LAWS.  251 

controllable,  excepting  when  my  mind  is  harassed  as  it  has  been 
by  circumstances  connected  with  my  private  concerns,  which  I 
could  not  grapple  with  and  master,  solely  because  I  was  chained  to 
another  oar." 

The  extracts  that  now  follow  are  from  letters  to  Mrs.  Cobden, 
except  in  the  few  cases  where  a  footnote  gives  the  name  of  some 
other  correspondent : — 

"  London,  Jan.  23.  —  Peel's  speech  last  night  ^  would  have  done 
capitally  for  Covent  Garden  Theatre,  and  Lord  Francis  Egerton's 
would  have  been  a  capital  address  from  the  chair  if  he  had  filled 
George  Wilson's  place.  The  Tories  are  in  a  state  of  frantic  excite- 
ment, and  the  Carlton  Club  is  all  in  confusion.  Nobody  knows 
his  party.  I  have  no  doubt  Peel  will  do  our  work  thoroughly,  or 
fall  in  the  attempt.  He  will  be  able  to  carry  his  measure  easily 
through  the  Commons,  with  the  aid  of  the  Opposition,  but  I  have 
my  suspicions  that  the  Lords  will  throw  it  out  and  force  a  dissolu- 
tion. Whatever  happens,  I  can  see  a  prospect  of  my  emancipa- 
tion at  no  distant  date.  I  am  going  to-morrow  to  Windsor,  to 
spend  the  Sunday  with  Mr.  Grote." 

"  Jan.  26.  —  I  spent  yesterday  at  Grote's  about  four  miles  from 
Slough,  and  met  Senior  the  political  economist,  Parkes,  and  Lum- 
ley  the  lessee  of  the  Italian  Opera.  We  had  a  long  walk  of  nearly 
twelve  miles  round  the  country,  and  for  want  of  training  I  find 
myself  like  an  old  posting-horse  to-day,  stiff  and  foot-sore.  .  .  . 
There  are  reports  to-day  of  some  resignations  about  the  Court,  but 
I  don't  hear  of  anybody  of  consequence  who  is  abandoning  Peel. 
Still  there  is  no  knowing  what  to-morrow  may  bring  forth.  We 
hear  nothing  as  to  the  details  of  Peel's  plan  to-morrow,  for  which 
we  are  all  looking  with  great  anxiety.  But  the  report  is  still  that 
he  intends  to  go  the  whole  hog.  A  very  handsome  gold  snuff-box 
has  just  been  presented  to  me  by  Mr.  Collett,  the  member  for 
Athlone." 

"  Jan.  28.  —  Peel  is  at  last  delivered,  but  I  hardly  know  whether 
to  call  it  a  boy  or  a  girl.  Something  between  the  two,  I  believe. 
His  corn  measure  makes  an  end  of  all  corn  laws  in  1849,  and  in 
the  mean  time  it  is  virtually  a  fixed  duty  of  4s.  He  has  done 
more  than  was  expected  from  him,  and  all  hut  the  right  thing. 
Whether  it  will  satisfy  our  ardent  friends  in  the  north  is  tlie  ques- 
tion. Let  me  know  all  the  gossip  you  hear  about  it.  I  abstained 
from  saying  a  word  in  the  House  because  I  did  not  wish  to  com- 
mit myself,  and  I  dissuaded  Villiers  and  the  rest  of  the  Leaguers 
from  speaking.  It  was  too  good  a  measure  to  be  denounced,  and 
not  quite  good  enough  for  unqualified  approbation,  and  therefore  I 
thought  it  best  to  be  quiet.     To-day  I  have  attended  a  meeting  at 

1  Announcing  the  necessity  of  a  new  commercial  system. 


252  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

Lord  John's  of  the  leaders  of  the  Whig  party.  They  seemed  dis- 
posed to  co-operate  with  Peel.  But  Villiers  will  bring  on  his 
motion  for  total  and  immediate  repeal,  and  when  that  is  lost  we 
must  do  the  best  we  can.  The  measure  will  pass  the  Commons 
with  a  very  large  majority,  some  people  say  seventy  to  one  hun- 
dred, but  the  question  still  is  what  will  be  done  in  the  Lords  ?  I 
asked  Lord  John  to-day  what  he  thought  the  Peers  would  do  with 
the  Bill,  and  he  says  if  Lord  Stanley  heads  the  Protectionists  they 
will  reject  it,  but  that  the  Lords  will  not  put  themselves  under  the 
Dukes  of  Eichmond  and  Buckingham.  I  hear  that  Lord  Stanley 
is  not  for  fighting  the  battle  of  Monopoly.  So  much  for  the  great 
question." 

''Jan.  29.^ —  My  own  opinion  is  that  we  should  not  be  justified 
in  the  eyes  of  the  country  if  we  did  anything  in  the  House  to  ob- 
struct the  measure,  and  I  doubt  whether  any  such  step  out  of  doors 
would  be  successful.  In  the  House,  Villiers  will  bring  on  his 
motion  for  total  and  immediate  repeal,  and  I  shall  not  be  surprised 
if  it  were  successful  simply  on  agricultural  grounds  by  our  being 
able  to  demonstrate  unanswerably  that  it  is  better  for  farmers  and 
landowners  to  have  the  change  at  once  rather  than  gradually. 
But  we  should  have  no  chance  on  any  other  than  agricultural 
grounds.  To  make  the  appeal  from  the  manufacturing  districts 
simply  on  the  plea  o^  justice  to  the  consumers,  would  not  have  much 
sympathy  here  or  elsewhere,  and  would  have  no  effect  upon 
Parliament  while  the  question  is  merely  one  of  less  than  three 
years'  time.  Therefore,  while  I  would  advise  you  to  petition  for 
the  whole  measure,  I  can't  say  I  think  any  great  demonstration  as 
against  Peel's  compromise  would  have  much  sympathy  elsewhere. 
Understand,  I  would  not  shift  a  hair's-breadth  from  our  ground, 
but  what  I  mean  strongly  to  impress  on  you  is  my  belief  that  any 
attempt  at  a  powerful  agitation  against  Peel's  compromise  would 
be  a  failure.  And  I  should  not  like  the  League  Council  to  take  a 
step  which  did  not  at  once  receive  a  national  support.  For  myself 
in  the  House  I  will  undertake  to  prove  unanswerably  that  it  would 
be  just  to  all,  and  especially  politic  for  the  agriculturists,  to  make 
the  repeal  immediate,  but  if  we  fail  on  Villiers's  motion  to  carry 
the  immediate,  I  shall  give  my  unhesitating  support  to  Peel,  and 
I  will  not  join  Whigs  or  Protectionists  in  any  factious  plan  for 
tripping  up  his  heels.  I  can't  hold  any  different  language  from 
this  out  of  doors,  and  therefore  can  hardly  see  the  use  of  a  public 
meeting  till  the  measure  comes  on  in  Parliament." 

"  Feh.  9.2 —  The  Queen's  doctor,  Sir  James  Clark  (a  good  Leaguer 
at  heart),  has  written  to  offer  to  pay  me  a  friendly  visit,  and  talk 
over  the  state  of  my  constitution,  with  a  view  to  advise  me  how  to 

1  To  Geo.  Wilson.  ^  To  F.  W.  Cohdm. 


^T.42.]  REPEAL  OF  THE   CORN  LAWS.  253 

unstring  the  bow.  He  wrote  me  a  croaking  warning  letter  more 
than  a  year  ago.  As  it  is  possible  there  may  be  a  paragraph  in 
some  newspaper  alluding  to  my  health,  I  thought  it  best  to  let  you 
know  in  case  of  inquiry.  But  don't  write  me  a  long  dismal  letter 
in  return,  for  I  can't  read  them,  and  it  does  no  good.  If  Charles 
could  come  up  for  a  week  with  a  determination  to  work  and  think, 
he  might  help  me  with  my  letters,  but  he  will  make  my  head  worse 
if  he  requires  me  to  look  after  him,  and  so  you  must  say  plainly." 

"London,  Feb.  19.^  — Your  letter  has  followed  me  here.  Peel's 
declaration  in  the  House  that  he  will  adopt  immediate  repeal  if 
it  is  voted  by  the  Commons,  seems  to  me  to  remove  all  difficulty 
from  Villiers's  path ;  he  can  now  propose  his  old  motion  without 
the  risk  of  doing  any  harm  even  if  he  should  not  succeed.  As 
respects  the  future  course  of  the  League,  the  less  that  is  said  now 
about  it  publicly  the  better.  If  Peel's  measure  should  become  iX 
law,  then  the  Council  will  be  compelled  to  face  the  question, 
*  What  shall  the  League  do  during  the  three  years  ? '  It  has  struck 
me  that  under  such  circumstances  we  might  absolve  the  large 
subscribers  from  all  further  calls,  put  the  staff  of  the  League  on  a 
peace  footing,  and  merely  keep  alive  a  nominal  organization  to  . 
prevent  any  attempt  to  undo  the  good  work  we  have  effected^^^ 
Not  that  I  fear  any  reaction.  On  the  contrary,  I  believe  the  pop- 
ularity of  Free  Trade  principles  is  only  in  its  infancy,  and  that  it 
will  every  year  take  firmer  hold  of  the  head  and  heart  of  the  com- 
munity. But  there  is  perhaps  something  due  to  our  repeated 
pledges  that  we  will  not  dissolve  until  the  corn  laws  are  entirely 
abolished.  In  any  case  the  work  will  be  effectually  finished 
during  this  year,  provided  the  League  preserve  its  firm  and  united 
position ;  and  it  is  to  prevent  the  slightest  appearance  of  disunion 
that  I  would  avoid  now  talking  in  public  about  the  future  course 
of  the  League.  It  is  the  League,  and  it  only,  that  frightens  the 
peers.  It  is  the  League  alone  which  enables  Peel  to  repeal  the  V 
law.  But  for  the  League  the  aristocracy  would  have  hunted  Peel 
to  a  premature  grave,  or  consigned  him  like  Lord  Melbourne  to 
a  private  station  at  the  bare  mention  of  total  repeal.  We  must 
hold  the  same  rod  over  the  Lords  until  the  measure  is  safe ;  after 
that  I  agree  with  you  in  thinking  that  it  matters  little  whether 
the  League  dies  with  honors,  or  lingers  out  a  few  years  of  inglori- 
ous existence." 

"  March  6.  ^  —  Nobody  knows  to  this  day  what  the  Lords  will 
do,  and  I  believe  all  depends  upon  their  fears  of  the  country.  If 
there  was  not  something  behind  corn  which  they  dread  even  still 
more,  I  doubt  if  they  would  ever  give  up  the  key  of  the  bread 
basket.     They  would  turn  out  Peel  with  as  little  ceremony  as 

1  To  H.  Ashworth,  a  To  F.  W.  Cobden. 


J 


254  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

they  would  dismiss  a  groom  or  keeper,  if  he  had  not  the  League 
at  his  back.  It  is  strange  to  see  the  obtuseness  of  such  men  as 
Hume,  who  voted  against  Villiers's  motion  to  help  Feel.  I  have 
reason  to  know  that  the  latter  was  well  pleased  at  the  motion, 
and  would  have  been  glad  if  we  had  had  a  larger  division.  It 
helps  Peel  to  be  able  to  point  to  something  beyond,  which  he 
does  not  satisfy.     I  wish  we  were  out  of  it." 

"  March  2b}  —  I  have  received  the  notes.  Moffatt  mentioned 
to  me  the  report  in  the  city  to  which  you  refer.  There  is  no  help 
for  these  things,  and  the  only  wonder  is  that  we  have  escaped  so 
well.  If  you  can  keep  this  affair  in  any  way  afloat  till  the  present 
corn  measure  reaches  the  Queen's  hands,  I  will  solve  the  difficulty, 
by  cutting  the  Gordian  knot,  or  rather  the  House ;  -and  the  rest 
must  take  its  chance.  I  don't  think  I  shall  speak  in  this  debate. 
It  does  no  earthly  good,  and  only  wastes  time.  People  are  not 
likely  to  say  I  am  silent  because  I  can't  answer  Bentinck  and  Co. 
The  bill  would  be  out  of  the  Commons,  according  to  appearances, 
before  Easter." 

"  March  30.  —  We  are  uncertain  which  course  will  be  taken  by 
the  Government  to-night,  whether  the  Corn  or  Coercion  Bill  is  to 
be  proceeded  with.  If  tlie  latter,  I  lear  we  shall  not  make  another 
step  with  the  corn  question  before  Easter.  I  don't  like  these 
delays." 

"  Ajpril  4.  —  It  is  my  present  intention  to  come  home  next 
Thursday  unless  there  is  anything  special  coming  on  that  evening, 
which  I  don't  think  very  likely.  It  happens  most  unluckily  that 
the  Government  has  forced  on  the  Coercion  Bill  to  the  exclusion 
of  corn,  for  owing  to  the  pertinacious  delay  thrown  in  the  way  of 
its  passing  by  the  Irish  members,  I  don't  expect  it  will  be  read 
the  first  time  before  Easter,  and  as  for  corn  there  is  no  chance  of 
hearing  of  it  again  till  after  the  holidays.  I  wish  to  God  we  were 
out  of  the  mess." 

"  April  6.  —  We  are  still  in  the  midst  of  our  Irish  squabble, 
and  there  is  no  chance  of  getting  upon  corn  again  before  Easter. 
It  is  most  mortifying  this  delay,  for  it  gives  the  chance  of  the 
chapter  of  accidents  to_  the  enemy." 

"April  23. — We  are  still  in  as  great  suspense  as  ever  about 
the  next  step  in  the  Corn  Bill.  The  Irishmen  threaten  to  delay 
us  till  next  Friday  week  at  least.  But  I  hear  that  the  general 
opinion  is  that  the  postponement  will  be  favorable  to  the  success 
of  the  measure  in  the  Lords." 

"April  25.  —  You  will  receive  a  Times  by  the  post  containing 
an  amusing  account  of  a  flare-up  in  the  House  between  Disraeli 
and  Peel  respecting  some  remarks  of  mine.     You  will  also  see 

1  To  F.  W.  Cobden, 


^T.42.]  REPEAL  OP  THE  CORN  LAWS.  255 

that  one  of  the  Irish  patriots  has  been  trying  to  play  us  false 
about  corn.  But  I  don't  find  that  the  bulk  of  the  liberal  Irish 
members  are  inclined  to  any  overt  act  of  treachery,  although  I 
fear  that  many  are  in  their  hearts  averse  to  our  repeal." 

''April  27.  —  Last  Saturday  I  dined  at  Lord  Mouteagle's,  and 

took  Lady into  dinner,  and  really  I  must  say  I  have  not  for 

five  years  met  with  a  new  acquaintance  so  much  to  my  taste.  I 
met  there  young  Gough,  son  of  Lord  Gough,  the  hero  of  the 
Sutlej,  and  had  some  interesting  private  talk  with  him  about 
tlie  doings  of  his  father.  We  are  going  on  again  to-night  with 
the  Coercion  Bill,  and  there  seems  to  be  a  prospect  of  the  Irish 
repealers  pursuing  a  little  more  conciliatory  course  towards  us. 
I  liear  that  my  speech  on  Friday  is  considered  to  have  been  very 
judicious,  inasmuch  as  I  spoke  soft  words,  calculated  to  turn  aside 
the  wrath  of  the  Irishmen.  They  are  a  very  odd  and  unmanage- 
able set,  and  I  fear  many  of  the  most  liberal  patriots  amongst 
tliem  would,  if  they  could  find  an  excuse,  pick  a  quarrel  with  us 
and  vote  against  Free  Trade,  or  stay  away.  They  are  landlords, 
and  like  the  rest  afraid  of  rent." 

"April  29. —  I  have  three  letters  from  you,  but  must  not 
attempt  now  to  give  you  a  long  reply.  We  are  meeting  this 
morning  as  usual  on  a  Wednesday,  at  twelve  o'clock  till  six  in  the 
House,  and  I  have  therefore  little  time  for  my  correspondence. 

The  Factory  Bill  is  coming  on  which  I  wish  to  attend  to 

You  may  tell  our  League  friends  that  I  begin  to  see  daylight 
through  the  fog  in  which  we  have  been  so  long  enveloped. 
O'Connell  tells  me  that  we  shall  certainly  divide  upon  the  first 
reading  of  the  Coercion  Bill  on  Friday.  That  being  out  of  the 
way,  we  shall  go  on  to  Corn  on  Monday,  and  next  week  will  I 
trust  see  the  Bill  fairly  out  of  the  House.  The  general  opinion 
is  that  the  delay  has  been  favorable  to  our  prospects  in  the 
Lords."     . 

"  May  2.  —  The  Corn  measure  comes  on  next  Monday,  and  will 
continue  before  the  House  till  it  passes.     Some  people  seem  to  \^ 
expect  that  it  will  get  out  of  our  hands  on  Friday  next.     I  still 
hear  more  and  more  favorable  reports  of  the  probable  doings  in 
the  Lords." 

"  May  8.  —  The  fact  is  we  are  here  in  a  dead  state  of  suspense, 
not  quite  certain  what  will  be  our  fate  in  the  Lords,  and  yet  every 
day  trying  to  learn  something  new,  and  still  left  in  the  same  doubt. 
It  is  now  said  that  we  shall  pass  the  third  and  last  reading  of  the 
Bill  in  the  Commons  on  Tuesday  next.  Then  it  will  go  up  to 
the  Lords,  where  the  debates  will  be  much  shorter,  for  tlie  Peers 
have  no  constituents  to  talk  to.  Lord  Ducie  says  he  thinks  there 
will  be  only  two  nights'  debates  upon  the  second  reading.  Still 
I  am  told  the  Queen's  assent  cannot  be  given  to  the  measure 


J 


256  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

before  the  middle  of  June,  and  very  likely  not  till  the  20th.  I 
dined  last  Saturday  at  Labouchere's,  in  Belgrave  Square,  and  sat 

beside   Lady  ,  a  very  handsome,  sprightly,  and  unaffected 

dame.  There  was  some  very  good  singing  after  dinner.  I  have 
been  obliged  to  mount  a  white  cravat  at  these  dinner-parties 
much  against  my  will,  but  I  found  a  black  stock  was  quite  out  of 
character.     So  you  see  I  am  getting  on." 

''May  11.  —  I  have  been  running  about,  sight-seeing,  the  last 
day  or  two.  On  Saturday  I  went  to  the  Horticultural  Society's 
great  flower-sliow  at  Chiswick.  It  was  a  glorious  day,  and  a  most 
charming  scene.  How  different  from  the  drenching  weather  you 
and  I  experienced  there." 

''May  13.  — I  am  sorry  to  say  I  see  no  chance  of  a  division  on 
the  Corn  Bill  till  Saturday  morning  at  one  or  two  o'clock,  and 
that  has  quite  tlirown  me  out  in  my  calculations  about  coming 
down.  I  fear  I  shall  not  be  able  to  see  you  for  a  week  or  two 
later.  The  Factory  Bill,  upon  which  I  must  speak  and  vote,  is 
before  the  House,  and  it  is  impossible  to  say  when  the  division 
will  take  place.  I  have  two  invitations  for  dinner  on  Saturday, 
one  to  Lord  Fitzwilliam's,  and  tlie  other  to  Lord  and  Lady  John 
Russell,  and  if  I  remain  over  that  day,  I  shall  prefer  the  latter,  as 
I  have  twice  refused  invitations  from  them.  I  assure  you  I 
would  rather  find  myself  taking  tea  with  you,  than  dining  with 
lords  and  ladies.  Do  not  trouble  yourself  to  write  to  me  every 
day.    I  don't  wish  to  make  it  a  task.    But  tell  me  all  the  gossip." 

"May  15.1  —  There  is  at  last  a  prospect  of  reading  the  Bill  a 
third  time  to-night.  The  Protectionists  promise  fairly  enough, 
but  I  have  seen  too  much  of  their  tactics  to  feel  certain  that  they 
will  not  have  another  adjournment.  There  is  a  revival  of  rumors 
again  that  the  Lords  will  alter  the  Bill  in  committee,  and  attempt 
a  fixed-duty  compromise,  or  a  perpetuation  of  the  reduced  scale. 
It  is  certain  to  pass  the  second  reading  by  a  majority  of  thirty  or 
forty,  but  it  is  not  safe  in  the  committee,  where  proxies  don't 
count.  I  should  not  now  be  able  to  leave  town  till  the  end  of 
the  month,  when  I  shall  take  a  week  or  ten  days  for  the  Whit- 
suntide recess." 

"  May  16.  —  I  last  night  had  the  glorious  privilege  of  giving  a 
vote  in  the  majority  for  the  third  reading  of  the  bill  for  the  total 
repeal  of  the  Corn  Law.  The  Bill  is  now  out  of  the  House,  and 
will  go  up  to  the  Lords  on  Monday.  I  trust  we  shall  never  hear 
the  name  of  'Corn'  again  in  the  Commons.  There  was  a  good 
deal  of  cheering  and  waving  of  hats  when  the  Speaker  had  put 
the  question,  '  that  this  bill  do  now  pass.'  Lord  Morpeth,  Macau- 
lay,  and  others  came  and  shook  hands  with  me,  and  congratulated 

I  To  F,  W.  Cohden. 


j:t.42.]  repeal  of  the  corn  laws.  257 

me  on  the  triumph  of  our  cause.  I  did  not  speak,  simply  for  the 
reason  that  I  was  afraid  that  I  should  give  more  life  to  the  debate, 
and  afford  an  excuse  for  another  adjournment ;  otherwise  I  could 
.have  made  a  telling  and  conciliatory  appeal.  Villiers  tried  to 
speak  at  three  o'clock  this  morning,  but  1  did  not  think  he  took 
the  right  tone.  He  was  fierce  against  the  Protectionists,  and  only 
irritated  them,  and  they  would  n't  hear  him.  The  reports  about 
the  doings  in  the  Lords  are  still  not  satisfactory  or  conclusive. 
Many  people  fear  still  that  they  will  alter  the  measure  with  a 
view  to  a  compromise.     But  I  hope  we  shall  escape  any  further 

trouble  upon  the  question I  feel  little  doubt  that  I  shall 

be  able  to  pay  a  visit  to  your  father  at  Midsummer.  At  least 
nothing  but  the  Lords  throwing  back  the  Bill  upon  the  country 
could  prevent  my  going  into  Wales  at  the  time,  for  I  shall  confi- 
dently expect  them  to  decide  one  way  or  another  by  the  15th  of 
June.  I  shall  certainly  vote  and  speak  against  the  Factory  Bill 
next  Friday." 

"  May  li.  —  We  are  so  beset  by  contradictory  rumors,  that  I 
know  not  what  to  say  about  our  prospects  in  the  Lords.    Our  good, 

conceited  friend  told  me  on  Wednesday  that  he  knew  the 

Peers  would  not  pass  the  measure,  and  on  Saturday  he  assured 
me  that  they  would.  And  this  is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  way  in 
which  rumors  vary  from  day  to  day.  This  morning  Lord  Mont- 
eagle  called  on  me,  and  was  strongly  of  opinion  that  they  would 
*  move  on,  and  not  stand  in  people's  way.'  A  few  weeks  will 
now  decide  the  matter  one  way  or  another.  I  think  I  told  you 
that  I  dined  at  Moffat's  last  Wednesday.  As  usual  he  gave  us  a 
first-rate  dinner.     After  leaving  Moffat's  at  eleven  o'clock,  I  went 

to  a  squeeze  at  Mrs. .     It  was  as  usual  hardly  possible  to  get 

inside  the  drawing-room  doors.  I  only  remained  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  and  then  went  home.  On  Saturday  I  din.ed  at  Lord  and 
Lady  John's,  and  met  a  select  party,  whose  names  I  see  in  to-day's 
papers I  am  afraid  if  I  associate  much  with  the  aristoc- 
racy, they  will  spoil  me.  I  am  already  half  seduced  by  the  fasci- 
nating ease  of  their  parties." 

"May  19.1  —  j  received  your  letters  with  the  enclosures.  We 
are  still  on  the  tenter-hooks  respecting  the  conduct  of  the  Lords. 
There  is,  however,  one  cheering  point :  the  majority  on  the  sec- 
ond reading  is  improving  in  the  stock-books  of  the  whippers-in. 
It  is  now  expected  that  there  will  be  forty  to  fifty  majority  at  the 
second  reading.  This  will  of  course  give  us  a  better  margin  for 
the  committee.  The  Government  and  Lord  John  (who  is  very 
anxious  to  get  the  measure  through)  are  doing  all  they  can  to 
insure  success.     The  ministers  from  Lisbon,  Florence,  and  other 

1  To  F.  W.  Cobden. 
17 


258  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

continental  cities  (where  they  are  Peers)  are  coming  home  to 
vote  in  committee.  Last  night  was  a  propitious  beginning  in  the 
Lords.  The  Duke  of  Eichmond  was  in  a  passion,  and  his  tone 
and  manner  did  not  look  like  a  winner." 

"  May  20.  —  We  are  still  worried  incessantly  with  rumors  of 
intrigues  at  headquarters.  Every  day  yields  a  fresh  report.  But 
I  will  write  fuller  to-morrow.  Villiers  is  at  my  elbow  with  a 
new  piece  of  gossip." 

"  May  20.^  —  I  have  looked  through  your  letter  to  Lord  Stan- 
ley, and  will  tell  you  frankly  that  I  felt  surprise  that  you  should 
have  wasted  your  time  and  thrown  away  your  talents  upon  so 
very  hopeless  an  object.  He  will  neither  read  nor  listen  to  facts 
or  arguments,  and  after  his  double  refusal  to  see  a  deputation,  I 
really  think  it  would  be  too  great  a  condescension  if  you  were  to 
solicit  his  attention  to  the  question  at  issue.  This  is  my  opinion, 
and  Bright  and  Wilson,  to  whom  I  have  spokeu,  appear  to  agree. 
But  if  you  would  like  the  letter  to  be  handed  to  him,  I  will  do  it. 
Your  evidence  before  the  Lords'  Committee  was  again  the  topic 
of  eulogy  from  Lord  Monteagle  yesterday,  who  called  on  me  with 
a  copy  of  his  report.  Everything  is  in  uncertainty  •  as  to  what 
the  Lords  will  do  in  Committee.  The  Protectionists  have  had  a 
great  flare-up  to-day  at  Willis's  Eooms,  and  they  appear  to  be  in 
great  spirits.  I  fear  we  shall  yet  be  obliged  to  launch  our  bark 
again  upon  the  troubled  waters  of  agitation.  But  in  the  mean 
time  the  calm  moderation  of  the  League  is  our  best  title  to  public 
support  if  we  should  be  driven  to  an  appeal  to  the  country." 

"  May  22. — Yesterday  I  dined  with  Lord  and  Lady  Eortescue, 
and  met  Lords  Normanby,  Campbell,  and  Morpeth.  I  sat  at  din- 
ner beside  the'  Duchess  of  Inverness,  the  widow  of  the  Duke  of 
Sussex,  a  plain  little  woman,  but  clever,  and  a  very  decided  Free 
Trader." 

"  May  23.  —  I  have  sent  you  a  Chronicle  containing  a  brief 
report  of  my  few  remarks  in  the  House  last  night.  Be  good 
enough  to  cut  it  out,  and  send  it  to  me  that  I  may  correct  it  for 
Hansard.  It  was  two  o'clock  when  I  spoke,  and  it  was  impossible 
to  do  justice  to  the  subject.  Count  on  my  being  at  home,  saving 
accidents,  on  Thursday  to  tea." 

"  Ma.y  23.  —  A  meeting  of  the  Whig  Peers  has  to-day  been 
held  at  Lord  Lansdowne's,  and  they  have  unanimously  resolved 
to  support  the  Government  measure  in  all  its  details.  There  were 
several  of  these  Whig  Peers  who  up  to  yesterday  were  under- 
stood to  be  resolved  to  vote  in  Committee  for  a  small  fixed  duty, 
and  the  danger  was  understood  to  be  with  them.  They  were 
beginning,  however,  to  be  afraid  that  Peel  might  dissolve,  and 

J  To  E.  Ashworth, 


^T.42.]  REPEAL   OF  THE   CORN  LAWS.  259 

thus  annihilate  the  Whig  party,  and  so  they  are  as  a  party  more 
inclined  to  let  the  measure  pass  now  in  order  to  get  a  chance  of 
coming  in  after  Peel's  retirement.  I  am  assured  by  Edward 
Ellice,  one  of  the  late  Whig  Cabinet,  that  the  bill  is  now  safe  and 
that  it  will  be  law  in  three  weeks.  Heaven  send  us  such  good 
luck!" 

"  June  10}  —  There  is  another  fit  of  apprehension  about  the 
Corn  Bill  owing  to  the  uncertainty  of  Peel's  position.  I  can't 
understand  his  motj-ve  for  constantly  poking  his  coercive  bill  in 
our  faces  at  these  critical  moments.  The  Lords  will  take  cour- 
age at  anything  that  seems  to  weaken  the  Government  morally. 
They  are  like  a  fellow  going  to  be  hanged  who  looks  out  for  a  re- 
prieve, and  is  always  hoping  for  a  lucky  escape  until  the  drop  falls." 

"  June  13.  —  I  have  scarcely  a  doubt  that  in  less  than  ten  days 
the  Corn  Bill  will  be  law.     But  we  cannot  say  it  is  as  safe  as 

if  carried I  breakfasted  yesterday  morning  with  Monck- 

ton  Milnes,  and  met  Suleiman  Pasha,  Prince  Louis  Napoleon, 
Count  D'Orsay,  D'Israeli,  and  a  queer  party  of  odds  and  ends. 
The  Pasha  is  a  strong-built,  energetic-looking  man  of  sixty. 
After  breakfast  he  got  upon  the  subject  of  military  tactics,  and 
fought  the  battle  of  Nezib  over  again  with  forks,  spoons,  and 
tumblers  upon  the  table  in  a  very  animated  way.  The  young 
Napoleon  is  evidently  a  weak  fellow,  but  mild  and  amiable.  I 
was  disappointed  in  the  physique  of  Count  D'Orsay,  who  is  a 
fleshy,  animal-looking  creature,  instead  of  the  spirituel  person  I 
expected  to  see.  He  certainly  dresses  d  merveille,  and  is  be- 
sides a  clever  fellow." 

"June  16.  —  The  Corn  Bill  is  now  safe  beyond  all  risk,  and 

we  may  act  as  if  it  had  passed I  met  Sir  James  Clark 

and  Doctor  Combe  at  Kingston  on  Sunday,  and  we  took  tea 
together.  Sir  James  was  strong  in  his  advice  to  me  to  go  abroad, 
and  the  doctor  was  half  disposed  with  his  niece  to  go  with  us  to 
Egypt.  Combe  and  I  went  to  Hampton  Court  Gardens  in  a  car- 
riage, and  had  a  walk  there.  I  am  afraid  Peel  is  going  out  im- 
mediately after  the  Corn  Bill  passes,  which  will  be  a  very  great 
damper  to  the  country ;  and  the  excitement  in  the  country  conse-* 
quent  on  a  change  of  Government  will,  I  fear,  interfere  with  a 
public  project  in  which  you  and  I  are  interested." 

"June  18.  —  The  Lords  will  not  read  the  Corn  Bill  the  third 
time  before  Tuesday  next,  and  I  shall  be  detained  in  town  to  vote 
on  the  Coercion  Bill  on  Thursday,  after  which  I  shall  leave  for 
Manchester.  I  send  you  a  Spectator  paper,  by  which  yon  will  see 
that  I  am  a  *  likable  '  person.     I  hope  you  will  appreciate  this." 

"June  23.  —  I  have  been  plagued  for  several  days  with  sitting 

1  To  F.  W.  Cohden. 


\y 


260  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  .  [1846. 

to  Herbert  for  tbe  picture  of  the  Council  of  the  League,  and  it 
completely  upsets  my  afternoons.  Besides,  my  mind  has  been 
more  than  ever  upon  the  worry  about  that  affair  which  is  to  come 
off  after  the  Corn  Bill  is  settled,  and  about  which  I  hear  all  sorts 
of  reports.  You  must  therefore  excuse  me  if  I  could  not  sit 
down  to  write  a  letter  of  news.  ....  I  thought  the  Corn  Bill 
would  certainly  be  read  the  third  time  on  Tuesday  (to-morrow), 
but  I  now  begin  to  think  it  will  be  put  off  till  Thursday.  Tliere 
is  literally  no  end  to  this  suspense.  But  there  are  reports  of 
Peel  being  out  of  office  on  Friday  next,  and  the  Peers  may  yet 
ride,  restive." 

''June  26.  — My  dearest  Kate,  —  Hurrah  !  Hurrah  !  the  Corn 
Bill  is  law,  and  now  my  work  is  done.  I  shall  come  down 
to-morrow  morning  by  the  six  o'clock  train  in  order  to  be  present 
at  a  Council  meeting  at  three,  and  shall  hope  to  be  home  in  time 
for  a  late  tea." 

By  what  has  always  been  noticed  as  a  striking  coincidence,  and 
has  even  been  heroically  described  as  Nemesis,  the  Corn  Bill 
passed  the  House  of  Lords  on  the  same  night  on  which  the 
Coercion  Bill  was  rejected  in  the  House  of  Commons.  On  this 
memorable  night  the  last  speech  before  the  division  was  made  by 
Cobden.  He  could  not,  he  said,  regard  the  vote  which  he  was 
about  to  give  against  the  Irish  Bill  as  one  of  no  confidence,  for  it 
was  evident  that  the  Prime  Minister  could  not  be  maintained  in 
power  by  a  single  vote.  If  he  had  a  majority  that  night,  Lord 
George  Bentinck  would  soon  put  him  to  the  test  again  on  some 
other  subject.  In  any  case,  Cobden  refused  to  stultify  himself  as 
Lord  George  and  his  friends  were  doing,  by  voting  black  to  be 
white  merely  to  serve  a  particular  purpose.  But  though  he  was 
bound  to  vote  against  the  Coercion  Bill,  he  rejoiced  to  think  that 
Sir  Robert  Peel  would  carry  with  him  the  esteem  and  gratitude 
of  a  greater  number  of  the  population  of  this  empire  than  had 
ever  followed  the  retirement  of  any  other  Minister. 

This  closed  the  debate.  The  Government  were  beaten  by  the 
heavy  majority  of  seventy-three.  The  fallen  Minister  announced 
his  resignation  of  office  to  the  House  three  days  later  (June  29) 
in  a  remarkable  speech.  As  Mr.  Disraeli  thinks,  it  was  consid- 
ered one  of  glorification  and  of  pique.  But  the  candor  of  pos- 
terity will  insist  on  recognizing  in  every  period  of  it  the  exalta- 
tion of  a  patriotic  and  justifiable  prirle.  In  this  speech  Sir 
Kobert  Peel  pronounced  that  eulogium  which  is  well  worn,  it  is 
true,  but  which  cannot  be  omitted  here.  "  In  reference  to  our 
proposing  these  measures,"  he  said,  "  I  have  no  wish  to  rob  any  per- 
son of  the  credit  which  is  justly  due  to  him  for  them.  But  I  may 
say  that  neither  the  gentlemen  sitting  on  the  benches  opposite, 


iET.42.]  CORRESPONDENCE  WITH   SIR  ROBERT  PEEL.  261 

nor  myself,  nor  the  gentlemen  sitting  round  me  —  I  say  that 
neither  of  us  are  the  parties  who  are  strictly  entitled  to  the  merit. 
There  has  been  a  combination  of  parties,  and  that  combination  of  / 
parties  together  with  the  influence  of  the  Government,  has  led  to  ^ 
the  ultimate  success  of  the  measures.  But,  Sir,  there  is  a  name 
which  ought  to  be  associated  with  the  success  of  these  measures : 
it  is  not  the  name  of  the  noble  Lord,  the  member  for  London, 
neither  is  it  my  name.  Sir,  the  name  which  ought  to  be  and 
which  will  be  associated  with  the  success  of  these  measures  is  the 
name  of  a  man  who,  acting,  I  believe,  from  pure  and  disinterested 
motives,  has  advocated  their  cause  with  untiring  energy,  and  by 
appeals  to  reason,  expressed  by  an  eloquence,  the  more  to  be 
admired  because  it  was  unaffected  and  unadorned  —  the  name 
which  ought  to  be  and  will  be  associated  with  the  success  of  these 
measures  is  the  name  of  Eichard  Cobden.  Without  scruple,  Sir, 
I.  attribute  the  success  of  these  measures  to  him." 

Cumbrous  as  they  are  in  expression,  the  words  were  received 
with  loud  approbation  in  the  House  and  with  fervent  sympathy 
in  the  country,  and  they  made  a  deep  mark  on  men's  minds, 
because  they  were  felt  to  be  not  less  truly  than  magnanimously 
spoken. 


CHAPTER   XVIL 

CORRESPONDENCE    WITH    SIR    ROBERT    PEEL  —  CESSATION    OF 
THE    WORK    OF    THE    LEAGUE. 

Three  days  before  the  vote  which  broke  up  the  Administra- 
tion, Cobden  had  taken  a  rather  singular  step.  As  he  afterwards 
told  a  friend,  it  was  the  only  thing  that  he  ever  did  as  a  member 
of  the  League  without  the  knowledge  of  Mr.  Bright.  He  wrote 
a  long  and  very  earnest  letter  to  the  Prime  Minister,  urging  him, 
in  the  tolerably  certain  event  of  defeat  on  the  Coercion  Bill,  to 
dissolve  Parliament. 

"  76,  Upper  Berkeley  Street,  Portman  Square, 
23  June,  1846. 

"  Sir,  —  I  have  tried  to  think  of  a  plan  by  which  I  could  have 
half  an  hour's  conversation  with  you  upon  public  matters,  but 
I  do  not  think  it  would  be  possible  for  us  to  have  an  inter- 
view with  the  guaranty  of  privacy.  I  therefore  take  a  course 
which  will  be  startling  to  you,  by  committing  the  thouglits 
which  are  passing  in  my  mind  freely  to  paper.     Let  me  premise 


262  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1846. 

that  no  human  being  has  or  ever  will  have  the  slightest  knowl- 
edge or  suspicion  that  I  am  writing  this  letter.  I  keep  no  copy, 
and  ask  for  no  reply.  I  only  stipulate  that  you  will  put  it  in  the 
fire  when  you  have  perused  it,  without  in  any  way  alluding 
to  its  contents,  or  permitting  it  to  meet  the  eye  of  any  other 
person  whatever.^  I  shall  not  waste  a  word  in  apologizing  for 
the  directness  —  nay,  the  abruptness  —  with  which  I  state  my 
views. 

'•  It  is  said  you  are  about  to  resign.  I  assume  that  it  is  so. 
On  public  grounds  this  will  be  a  national  misfortune.  The  trade 
of  the  country,  which  has  languished  through  six  months  during 
the  time  that  the  Corn  Bill  has  been  in  suspense,  and  which 
would  now  assume  a  more  confident  tone,  will  be  again  plunged 
into  renewed  unsettlement  by  your  resignation.  Again,  the 
great  principle  of  commercial  freedom  with  which  your  name  is 
associated  abroad,  will  be  to  some  extent  jeopardized  by  your 
retirement.  It  will  fill  the  whole  civilized  world  with  doubt 
and  perplexity  to  see  a  minister,  whom  they  believed  all-power- 
ful, because  he  was  able  to  carry  the  most  difficult  measure  of 
our  time,  fall  at  the  very  moment  of  his  triumph.  Foreigners, 
who  do  not  comprehend  the  machinery  of  our  government,  or  the 
springs  of  party  movements,  will  doubt  if  the  people  of  England 
are  really  favorable  to  Free  Trade.  They  will  have  misgivings 
of  the  permanence  of  our  new  policy,  and  this  doubt  will  retard 
their  movements  in  the  same  direction.  You  have  probably 
thought  of  all  this. 

"  My  object,  however,  in  writing  is  more  particularly  to  draw 
your  attention  from  the  state  of  parties  in  the  House,  as  towards 
your  government,  to  the  position  you  hold  as  Prime  Minister  in 
the  opinion  of  the  country.  Are  you  aware  of  the  strength  c»f 
your  position  with  the  country  ?  If  so,  why  bow  to  a  chance 
medley  of  factions  in  the  Legislature,  with  a  nation  ready  and 
waiting  to  be  called  to  your  rescue  ?  Few  persons  have  more 
opportunities  forced  upon  them  than  myself  of  being  acquainted 
with  the  relative  forces  of  public  opinion.  I  will  not  speak  of 
the  populace,  which  to  a  man  is  with  you  ;  but  of  the  active  and 
intelligent  middle  classes,  with  whom  you  have  engrossed  a  sym- 
pathy and  interest  greater  than  was  ever  before  possessed  by  a 
minister.     The  period  of  the  Reform  Bill  witnessed  a  greater 

1  Cobden  did  not  know  that  Sir  Robert  Peel  put  nothing  into  the  fire.     He  once 

said  to  one  of  his  youngei'  followers,  —  "  My  dear ,  no  public  man  who  values 

his  character  ever  destroys  a  letter  or  a  piipei."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Peel  put  up 
every  night  all  the  letters  and  notes  that  had  come  to  him  in  the  day,  and  it 
is  understood  that  considerably  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  papers  are  in  the 
possession  of  his  literary  executors.  Some  who  exercise  themselves  upon  the  minor 
moralities  of  private  life  will  be  shocked  that  he  did  not  respect  his  correspond- 
ent's stipulation. 


jEt.42.]  correspondence  WITH   SIR  ROBERT   PEEL.  263 

enthusiasm,  but  it  was  less  rational  and  less  enduring.  It  was 
directed  towards  half  a  dozen  popular  objects  —  Grey,  Eussell, 
Brougham,  etc.  Now,  the  whole  interest  centres  in  ycjurself. 
You  represent  the  Idea  of  the  age,  and  it  has  no  other  repre- 
sentative amongst  statesmen.  You  could  be  returned  to  Parlia- 
ment with  acclamation  by  any  one  of  the  most  numerous  and 
wealthy  constituencies  of  the  kingdom.  Fox  once  said  that 
'Middlesex  and  Yorkshire  together-  make  all  England.'  You 
may  add  Lancashire,  and  call  them  your  own.  Are  you  justified 
towards  the  Queen,  the  people,  and  the  great  question  of  our 
generation,  in  abandoning  this  grand  and  glorious  position  ? 
Will  you  yourself  stand  the  test  of  an  impartial  historian  ? 

"  You  will  perceive  that  I  point  to  a  dissolution  as  the  solution 
of  your  difficulties  in  Parliament.  I  anticipate  your  objections. 
You  will  say,  —  'If  I  had  had  the  grounds  for  a  dissolution 
whilst  the  Corn  Bill  was  pending,  I  should  have  secured  a 
majority  for  that  measure ;  but  now  I  have  no  such  exclu- 
sive call  upon  the  country,  by  which  to  set  aside  old  party  dis- 
tinctions.' There  are  no  substantial  lines  of  demarcation  now 
in  the  country  betwixt  the  Peelites  and  the  so-called  Whig  or 
Liberal  party.  The  Chiefs  are  still  keeping  up  a  show  of  hostil- 
ity in  the  House;  but  their  troops  out  of  doors  have  piled 
their  arms,  and  are  mingling  and  fraternizing  together.  This 
fusion  must  sooner  or  later  take  place  in  the  House.  The  in- 
dependent men,  nearly  all  who  do  not  look  for  office,  are  ready  for 
the  amalgamation.  They  are  with  difficulty  kept  apart  by  the 
instinct  of  party  discipline.  One  dissolution,  judiciously  brought 
about,  w^ould  release  every  one  of  them  from  those  bonds  which 
time  and  circumstances  have  so  greatly  loosened. 

"  I  have  said  that  a  dissolution  should  be  judiciously  brought 
about.  I  assume,  of  course,  that  you  would  not  deem  it  necessary 
to  stand  or  fall  by  the  present  Coercion  Bill.  I  assume,  moreover, 
that  you  are  alive  to  the  all-pervading  force  of  the  arguments  you 
have  used  in  favor  of  Free  Trade  principles,  that  they  are  eternal 
truths,  applicable  to  all  articles  of  exchange,  as  well  as  corn  ;  and 
that  they  must  be  carried  out  in  every  item  of  our  tariff'.  I  assume 
that  you  foresaw,  when  you  propounded  the  Corn  Bill,  that  it 
involved  the  necessity  of  applying  the  same  principle  to  sugar, 
coffee,  etc.  This  assumption  is  the  basis  of  all  I  have  said,  or 
have  to  say.  Any  other  hypothesis  would  imply  that  you  had 
not  grasped  in  its  full  comprehensiveness  the  greatness  of  your 
position,  or  the  means  by  which  you  could  alone  achieve  the 
greatest  triumph  of  a  century.  For  I  need  not  tell  you  that  the 
only  way  in  which  the  soul  of  a  great  nation  can  be  stirred,  is  by 
appealing  to  its  sympathies  with  a  true  principle  in  its  unalloyed 
simplicity.     Nay,  further,  it  is  necessary  for  the  concentration  of 


264  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1846. 

a  people's  mind  that  an  individual  should  become  the  incarnation 
of  a  principle.  It  is  from  this  necessity  that  I  have  been  identi- 
fied, out  of  doors,  beyond  my  poor  deserts,  as  the  exponent  of 
Free  Trade.  You,  and  no  other,  are  its  embodiment  amongst 
statesmen ;  —  and  it  is  for  this  reason  alone  that  I  venture  to 
talk  to  you  in  a  strain  that  would  otherwise  be  grossly  imper- 
tinent. 

"  To  return  to  the  practical  question  of  a  dissolution.  Assuming 
that  your  Cabinet  will  concur,  or  that  you  will  place  yourself  in 
a  position  independently  of  others  to  appeal  to  the  country,  this 
is  the  course  I  should  pursue  under  your  circumstances.  I  would 
contrive  to  make  it  so  far  a  judgment  of  the  electors  upon  my  own 
conduct  as  a  Minister,  as  to  secure  support  to  myself  in  the  next 
Parliament  to  carry  out  my  principles.  I  would  say  in  ray  place 
in  Parliament  to  Lord  George  Bentinck  and  his  party,  —  *  I  have 
been  grossly  maligned  in  this  House,  and  in  the  newspaper  press. 
I  have  been  charged  with  treachery  to  the  electors  of  this  empire. 
My  motives  have  been  questioned,  my  character  vilified,  my  policy 
denounced  as  destructive  of  the  national  interests.  I  have  borne 
all  this,  looking  only  to  the  success  of  what  I  deemed  a  pressing 
public  measure.  I  will  not,  however,  stand  convicted  of  these 
charges  in  the  eyes  of  the  civilized  world  until,  at  least,  the  nation 
has  had  the  opportunity  of  giving  its  verdict.  I  will  appeal  to 
the  electors  of  this  empire ;  they  shall  decide  between  you  and 
me  —  between  your  policy  and  mine.  By  their  judgment  I  am 
content  to  stand  or  fall.  The}^  shall  decide,  not  only  upon  my  past 
policy,  but  whether  the  principles  I  have  advocated  shall  be  ap- 
plied in  their  completeness  to  every  item  of  our  tariff.  I  am  pre- 
pared to  complete  the  work  I  have  begun.  All  I  ask  is  time,  and 
the  support  of  an  enlightened  and  generous  people.' 

"  This  tone  is  essential,  because  it  will  release  the  members  of 
a  new  Parliament  from  their  old  party  ties.  The  hustings  cry 
will  be,  '  Peel  and  Free  Trade,'  and  every  important  constituency 
will  send  its  members  up  to  support  you.  I  would  dissolve  within 
the  next  two  months.  Some  people  might  urge  that  the  counties 
would  be  in  a  less  excited  state,  if  it  were  deferred ;  bnt  any  dis- 
advantage in  that  respect  would  be  more  than  compensated  by 
the  gain  in  the  town  constituencies.  I  would  go  to  the  country 
with  my  Free  Trade  laurels  fresh  upon  my  brow,  and  whilst  the 
grievance  under  which  I  was  suffering  from  the  outrages  of  Pro- 
tectionist speakers  and  writers  was  still  rankling  in  the  minds  of 
people,  whose  sympathies  have  been  greatly  aroused  by  the  con- 
duct of  Lord  George  Bentinck  and  his  organs  of  the  press  towards 
you.  Besides,  I  believe  there  are  many  county  members  who 
would  tell  their  constituents  honestly  that  Protection  was  a  hope- 
less battle-cry,  and  that  they  would  not  pledge  themselves  to  a 


JET.  42.]  CORRESPONDENCE  WITH   SIR   ROBERT   PEEL.  265 

system  of  personal  persecution  against  yourself.  Some  of  your 
persecutors  would  not  enter  the  next  Parliament.^  Now  I  will 
anticipate  what  is  passing  in  your  mind.  Do  you  shrink  from 
the  post  of  governing  through  the  bond  fide  representatives  of  the 
middle  class  ?  Look  at  the  -facts,  and  can  the  country  be  otherwise 
ruled  at  all  ?  There  must  be  an  end  of  the  juggle  of  parties,  the 
mere  representatives  of  traditions,  and  some  man  must  of  necessity 
rule  the  State  through  its  governing  class.  The  Eeforoi  Bill 
decreed  it ;  the  passing  of  the  Corn  Bill  has  realized  it.  Are  you 
afraid  of  the  middle  class  ?  You  must  know  them  better  than  to 
suppose  that  they  are  given  to  extreme  or  violent  measures.  They 
are  not  democratic.  • 

"Again,  to  anticipate  what  is  passing  in  your  thoughts.  Do 
you  apprehend  a  difhculty  in  effacing  the  line  which  separates 
you  from  the  men  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  House  ?  I  answer 
that  the  leaders  of  the  Opposition  personate  no  idea.  You  embody 
in  your  own  person  the  idea  of  the  age.  Do  you  fear  that  other 
questions  which  are  latent  on  the  'Liberal'  side  of  the  House, 
would  embarrass  you  if  you  were  at  the  head  of  a  considerable 
section  of  its  members  ?  What  are  they  ?  Questions  of  organic 
reform  have  no  vitality  in  the  country,  nor  are  they  likely  to 
have  any  force  in  the  House  until  your  work  is  done.  Are  the 
Whig  leaders  more  favorable  than  yourself  to  institutional  changes 
of  any  kind  ?  Practical  reforms  are  the  order  of  the  day,  and  you 
are  by  common  consent  the  practical  reformer.  The  Condition  of 
England  Question  —  there  is  your  mission  !    . 

"  As  respects  Ireland.  That  has  become  essentially  a  practical 
question  too.  If  you  are  prepared  to  deal  with  Irish  landlords  as 
you  have  done  with  English,  there  will  be  the  means  of  satisfying 
the  people.  You  are  not  personally  unpopular,  but  the  reverse, 
with  Irish  members. 

"  Lastly,  as  respects  your  health.  God  only  knows  how  you 
have  endured,  without  sinking,  the  weight  of  public  duties  and 
the  harassings  of  private  remonstrances  and  importunities  during 
the  last  six  months.  But  I  am  of  opinion  that  a  dissolution, 
judiciously  brought  on,  would  place  you  comparatively  on  velvet 
for  five  years.  It  would  lay  in  the  dust  your  tormentors.  It 
would  explode  the  phantom  of  a  Whig  Opposition,  and  render 
impossible  such  a  combination  as  is  now,  I  fear,"  covertly  harassing 
you.  But  it  is  on  the  subject  of  your  health  alone  that  I  feel  I 
may  be  altogether  at  fault,  and  urging  you  to  what  may  be  impos- 
sible. In  my  public  views  of  your  position  and  power,  I  am  not 
mistaken.  Whatever  may  be  the  difficulties  in  your  Cabinet, 
whether  one  or  half-a-score  of  your  colleagues  may  secede,  you 

^  "  Among  other  things,"  Cobden  wrote  to  Mr.  Parkes,  "  I  remember  meution- 
ing  the  fact  that  Disraeli  could  not  be  again  returned  for  Shrewsbury." 


266  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

have  in  your  own  individual  will  the  power,  backed  by  the 
country,  to  accomplish  all  that  the  loftiest  ambition  or  the  truest 
patriotism  ever  aspired  to  identify  with  the  name  and  fame  of 
one  individual. 

"  I.  hardly  know  how  to  conclude  without  apologizing  for  this 
most  extraordinary  liberty.  If  you  credit  me,  as  I  believe  you 
will,  when  I  say  that  I  have  no  object  on  earth  but  a  desire  to 
advance  the  interests  of  the  nation  and  of  humanity  in  writing 
to  you,  any  apology  will  be  unnecessary.  If  past  experience  do 
not  indicate  my  motives,  time,  I  hope,  will. 

"  It  is  my  intention,  on  the  passing  of  the  Corn  Bill,  to  make 
instant  arrangements  for  going  abroach  for  at  least  a  year,  and  it 
is  not  likely  after  Friday  next  that  I  shall  appear  in  the  House. 
This  is  my  reason  for  venturing  upon  so  abrupt  a  communication 
of  all  that  is  passing  in  my  mind.  I  reiterate  the  assurance  that 
no  person  will  know  that  I  have  addressed  you,  and  repeating  my 
request  that  this  letter  be  exclusively  for  your  own  eyes, 
I  have  the  honor  to  be,  Sir,  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

RlCHAED  COBDEN. 
"Rt.  Hon.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  Bart.,  M.P." 

"  P.  S.  I  am  of  opinion  that  a  dissolution,  in  the  way  I  sug- 
gested, with  yourself  still  in  power,  would  very  much  facilitate 
the  easy  return  of  those  on  your  side  who  voted  with  you. 
And  any  members  of  your  government  who  had  a  difficulty 
with  their  present  seats,  would,  if  they  adhered  to  you,  be  at  a 
premium  with  any  free  constituency.  Were  I  in  your  position, 
although  as  a  principle  I  do  not  think  Cabinet  ministers  ought  to 
encumber  themselves  with  large  constituencies,  I  would  accept  an 
invitation  to  stand  for  London,  Middlesex,  South  Lancashire,  or 
West  Yorkshire,  expressly  to  show  to  the  world  the  estimation  in 
which  my  principles  were  held,  and  declaring  at  the  same  time 
that  that  was  my  sole  motive  for  one  Parliament  only." 


To  this   the   Prime  Minister  replied   on   the   following  day, 
riting  at  the  green  ti 
debate  as  he  wrote :  — 


writing  at  the  green  table  and  listening  to  the  course  of  the 


"House  of  Commons,  Wednesday,  June  lUh,  1846. 

"Sir,  —  I  should  not  write  from  this  place  if  I  intended  to 
weigh  expressions,  or  to  write  to  you  in  any  other  spirit  than 
that  of  frankness  and  unreserve,  by  which  your  letter  is  charac- 
terized. First  let  me  say  that  I  am  very  sorry  to  hear  you  are 
about  to  leave  London  immediately.  I  meant  to  take  the  earliest 
opportunity,  after  the  passing  of  the  Corn  Bill,  to  ask  for  the 


^T.42.]  CORRESPONDENCE  WITH   SIR   ROBERT  PEEL.  267 

satisfaction  of  making  your  personal  acquaintance,  and  of  ex- 
pressing a  hope  that  every  recollection  of  past  personal  differences  i/ 
was  obliterated  for  ever.  If  you  were  aware  of  the  opinions  I 
have  been  expressing  during  the  last  two  years  to  my  most  inti- 
mate friends  with  regard  to  the  purity  of  your  motives,  your 
intellectual  power,  and  ability  to  give  effect  to  it  by  real  elo- 
quence —  you  would  share  in  my  surprise  that  all  this  time  I  was 
supposed  to  harbor  some  hostile  personal  feeling  towards  you. 

"  I  need  not  give  you  the  assurance  that  I  shall  regard  your 
letter  as  a  communication  more  purely  confidential  than  if  it  had 
been  written  to  me  by  some  person  united  to  me  by  the  closest 
bonds  of  private  friendship. 

"  I  do  not  think  I  mistake  my  position. 

"  I  would  have  given,  as  I  said  I  would  give,  every  proof  of 
fidelity  to  the  measures  which  I  introduced  at  the  beginning  of 
this  Session.  I  would  have  instantly  advised  dissolution  if  dis- 
solution had  been  necessary  to  insure  their  passing.  I  should 
have  thought  such  an  exercise  of  the  Prerogative  justifiable —  if 
it  had  given  me  a  majority  on  no  other  question.  If  my  reten- 
tion of  office,  under  any  circumstances  however  adverse,  had  been 
necessary  or  would  have  been  probably  conducive  to  the  success 
of  those  measures,  I  would  have  retained  it.  They  will,  however, 
I  confidently  trust,  be  the  law  of  the  land  on  Friday  next. 

"  I  do  not  agree  with  you  as  to  the  effect  of  my  retirement  from 
office  as  a  justifiable  ground,  after  the  passing  of  those  measures. 

"  You  probably  know  or  will  readily  believe  that  which  is  the 
truth — that  such  a  position  as  mine  entails  the  severest  sacrifices. 
The  strain  on  the  mental  power  is  far  too  severe ;  I  will  say 
nothing  of  ceremony  —  of  the  extent  of  private  correspondence 
about  mere  personal  objects  —  of  the  odious  power  which  patronage 
confers  —  but  what  must  be  my  feelings  when  I  retire  from  the 
House  of  Commons  after  eight  or  nine  hours'  attendance  on 
frequently  superfluous  or  frivolous  debate,  and  feel  conscious  that 
all  that  time  should  have  been  devoted  to  such  matters  as  our 
relations  with  the  United  States  —  the  adjustment  of  the  Oregon 
dispute  —  our  Indian  policy  —  our  political  or  commercial  rela- 
tions with  the  great  members  of  the  community  of  powerful 
nations. 

"  You  will  believe,  I  say,  if  you  reflect  on  these  things,  that 
office  and  power  may  be  anything  but  an  object  of  ambition,  and 
that  I  must  be  insane  if  I  could  have  been  induced  by  anything 
but  a  sense  of  public  duty  to  undertake  what  I  have  undertaken 
in  this  Session. 

"But  the  world,  the  great  and  small  vulgar,  is  not  of  this 
opinion.  I  am  sorry  to  say  they  do  not  and  cannot  comprehend 
the  motives  which  influence  the  hest  actions  of  public  men.    They 


268  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

think  that  public  men  change  their  course  from  corrupt  motives, 
and  their  feeling  is  so  predominant,  that  the  character  of  public 
men  is  injured,  and  their  practical  authority  and  influence  im- 
paired, if  in  such  a  position  as  mine  at  the  present  moment  any 
defeat  be  submitted  to,  which  ought  under  ordinary  circumstances 
to  determine  the  fate  of.  a  government,  or  there  be  any  clinging  to 
office. 

"  I  think  T  should  do  more  homage  to  the  principles  on  whicli 
the  Corn  and  Customs  Bills  are  founded,  by  retirement  on  a  per- 
fectly justifiable  ground,  than  either  by  retaining  office  without 
its  proper  authority,  without  the  ability  to  carry  through  that 
which  I  undertake,  or  by  encountering  the  serious  risk  of  defeat 
after  dissolution. 

"  I  do  not  think  a  minister  is  justified  in  advising  dissolution 
under  such  circumstances  as  the  present,  unless  he  has  a  strong 
conviction  that  he  will  have  a  majority  based  not  on  temporary 
personal  sympathies,  not  on  concurrence  of  sentiment  on  one 
branch  of  policy,  however  important  that  may  be,  but  on  general 
approval  of  his  whole  policy. 

"  I  should  not  think  myself  entitled  to  exercise  this  great  pre- 
rogative for  the  sole  or  the  main  purpose  of  deciding  a  personal 
question  between  myself  and  inflamed  Protectionists  —  namely, 
whether  I  had  recently  given  good  advice  and  lionest  advice  to 
the  Crown.  The  verdict  of  the  country  might  be  in  my  favor  on 
that  issue  ;  but  I  might  fail  in  obtaining  a  majority  which  should 
enable  me,  after  the  first  excitement  had  passed  away,  to  carry  on 
the  government  that  is  to  do  what  I  think  conducive  to  the  public 
welfare.  I  do  not  consider  the  evasion  of  difficulties,  and  the 
postjDonement  of  troublesome  questions,  the  carrying  on  of  a 
government. 

"  I  could  perhaps  have  parried  even  your  power,  and  carried  on 
the  government  in  one  sense  for  three  or  four  years  longer,  if  I 
could  have  consented  to  halloo  on  a  majority  in  both  houses 
to  defend  the  (not  yet  defunct)  Corn  Law  of  1842,  'in  all  its 
integrity.' 

"  If  you  say  that  I  individually  at  this  moment  embody  or  per- 
sonify an  idea,  be  it  so.  Then  I  must  be  very  careful  that,  being 
the  organ  and  representative  of  a  prevailing  and  magnificent  con- 
ception of  the  public  mind,  I  do  not  sully  that  which  I  represent 
by  warranting  the  suspicion  even  that  I  am  using  the  power  it 
confers  for  any  personal  object. 

"  You  have  said  little,  and  I  have  said  nothing,  about  Ireland. 
But  if  I  am  defeated  on  the  Irish  Bill,  will  it  be  possible  to  divest 
dissolution  (following  soon  after  that  defeat)  of  the  character  of 
an  appeal  to  Great  Britain  against  Ireland  on  a  question  of  Irish 
Coercion  ?     I  should  deeply  lament  this. 


^T.42.]  CORRESPONDENCE  WITH   SIR  ROBERT  PEEL.  269 

"  I  will  ask  you  also  to  consider  this.  After  the  passing  of  the 
Corn  and  Customs  Bill,  considering  how  much  trade  has  suffered 
of  late  from  delays,  debates,  and  uncertainty  as  to  the  hnal  result, 
does  not  this  country  stand  in  need  of  repose .?  Would  not  a  des- 
perate political  conHict  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  tlie 
land  impair  or  defer  the  beneficial  effect  of  the  passing  of  those 
measures  ?  If  it  would,  we  are  just  in  that  degree  abating  satis- 
faction with  the  past,  and  reconcilement  to  the  continued  applica- 
tion of  the  principles  of  Free  Trade. 

"  Consider  also  the  effect  of  dissolution  in  Ireland ;  the  rejec- 
tion of  the  Irish  Bill  immediately  preceding  it. 

"I  have  written  this  during  the  progress  of  the  debates,  to 
which  I  have  been  obliged  to  give  some  degree  of  attention.  I 
may,  therefore,  have  very  imperfectly  explained  my  views  and 
feelings,  but  imperfect  as  that  explanation  may  be,  it  will  I  hope 
suffice  to  convince  you  that  I  receive  your  communication  in  the 
spirit  in  which  it  was  conceived,  and  that  I  set  a  just  value  on 
your  good  opinion  and  esteem. 

"  I  have  the  honor  to  be,  Sir, 

With  equal  respect  for  your  character  and  abilities, 
Your  faithful  Servant, 

Egbert  Peel." 

It  is  easy  to  understand  the  attractiveness  of  the  idea  with  j/ 
which  Cobden  was  now  possessed.     It  was  thoroughly  worked 
out  in  his  own  mind.     By  means  of  the  forty-shilling  freehold, 
the  middle  and  industrious  classes  were  to  acquire  a  preponder- 
ance of  political  power.      It  was  not  the  workmen  as  such,  in 
whom  Cobden  had  confidence.     "  You  never  heard  me,"  he  said 
to  the  Protectionists  in  the  House  of  Commons,  "  quote  the  su- 
perior judgment  of  the  working  classes  in  any  deliberations  in 
this  assembly:  you  never  heard  me  cant  about  the  superior  claims  . 
of  the  working  classes  to  arbitrate  on  this  great  question."  ^     Po- 
litical power  was  to  be  in  the  hands  of  people  who  had  public 
spirit  enough  to  save  the  thirty  pounds  or  so  that  would  buy 
them  a  qualification,  if  they  could  not  get  it  in  any  other  way. 
These  middle  and  industrious  classes  would  insist  on  pacific  and /--'  - 
thrifty  administration,  as  the  political  condition  of  popular  devel-^ 
opment.     Circumstances  had  brought  forward  a  powerful  repre- 
sentative of  such  a  policy  in  Sir  Eobert  Peel ;  and  Peel  at  the 
head  of  a  fusion  of  Whigs  and  Economic  Liberals  would  carry^ 
the  country  along  the  ways  of  a  new  and  happier  civilization.  " 
The  old  Whig  watchword  of  Civil  and  Eeligious  Liberty  belonged 
to  another  generation,  and  it  had  ceased  to  be  the  exclusive  cry 

1  SpeecJies,  i.  372.     Feb.  27,  1846. 


270  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1846. 

of  the  Whigs  even  now.  The  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  had  broken 
\/  up  all  parties.  "  I  felt,"  said  Cobden,  "  that  I  as  much  belonged 
to  Sir  James  Graham's  party,  as  I  did  to  Lord  John  Eussell's 
party."  ^  There  must  be  a  great  reconstruction,  and  Sir  Eobert 
Peel  was  to  preside  over  it. 

Such  a  scheme  was  admirable  in  itself.  In  substance  it  was 
destined  to  be  partially  realized  one  day,  not  by  Peel,  but  by  the 
most  powerful  and  brilliant  of  his  lieutenants.  The  singular  fate 
which  had  marked  the  Minister's  past  career  was  an  invincible 
obstacle  to  Cobden's  project.  It  was  too  late.  All  the  accepted 
decencies  of  party  would  have  been  outraged  if  the  statesman  who 
had  led  an  army  of  Tory  country  gentlemen  in  one  Parliament, 
should  have  hurried  to  lead  an  army  of  Liberal  manufacturers  in 
the  next.  The  transition  was  too  violent,  the  prospect  of  success 
too  much  of  an  accident.  Nobody,  again,  could  expect  with  Lord 
John  Eussell's  view,  and  it  was  a  just  view,  of  Peel's  long  and 
successful  opposition  to  measures  and  principles  which  he  imme- 
diately took  for  his  own  on  coming  into  power,  that  they  should 
have  been  able  to  unite  their  forces  under  the  lead  of  either  of 
them.  It  would  have  seemed  to  Lord  John  quite  as  equivocal  a 
transaction  as  the  too  famous  coalition  between  Charles  Fox  and 
Lord  North.  What  he  did  was  to  offer  posts  in  his  administra- 
tion to  three  of  Sir  Eobert  Peel's  late  colleagues,^  and  this  was  as 
far  as  he  could  go.  They  declined,  and  the  country  was  thrown 
1/  back  upon  a  Whig  Administration  of  the  old  type.  When  that 
Administration  came  to  an  end,  the  fusion  which  Cobden  had 
desired  came  to  pass.  But  Sir  Eobert  Peel  was  there  no  more. 
The  power  which  he  would  have  used  in  furtherance  of  the  wise 
and  beneficent  policy  cherished  by  Cobden,  fell  into  the  hands  of 
Lord  Palmerston,  who  represented  every  element  in  the  national 
character  and  traditions  which  Cobden  thought  most  retrograde 
and  dangerous. 

Happily  for  the  peace  of  the  moment,'  these  mortifications  of 
the  future  were  unknown  and  unsuspected.  Ten  days  after  his 
letter  to  the  fallen  Minister,  Cobden  received  a  communication 
from  his  successor. 

'•  Chesham  Place,  J%dy  2,  1846. 

"  My  dear  Sir,  —  The  Queen  having  been  pleased  to  intrust 
me  with  the  task  of  forming  an  Administration,  I  have  been 
anxious  to  place  in  office  those  who  have  maintained  in  our  recent 
struggle  the  principles  of  Free  Trade  against  Monopoly. 

"  The  letter  I  received  from  you  in  November  last,  declining 
office,  and  the  assurances  I  have  received  that  you  are  going 

1  Speeches,  ii.  507. 

2  Lord  Dalliousie,  Sir  James  Graham,  and  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert, 


iET.  42.]  CESSATION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  THE  LEAGUE.  271 

abroad  for  your  health,  have  in  combination  with  other  circum- 
stances prevented  my  asking  your  aid,  nor,  had  I  proposed  to  you 
to  join  the  Government,  could  I  have  placed  you  anywhere  but  in 
the  Cabinet.  I  have  not  hitherto  perceived  that  you  were  dis- 
posed to  adopt  political  life,  apart  from  Free  Trade,  as  a  pursuit. 
I  hope,  however,  you  will  do  so,  and  that  on  your  return  to  this 
country  you  will  join  a  liberal  Administration. 

"  I  care  little  whether  the  present  arrangement  remains  for  any 
long  period  in  the  direction  of  affairs.  But  I  am  anxious  to  see 
a  large  Liberal  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons  devoted  to 
improvement,  both  in  this  country  and  in  Ireland.  Mr.  Charles 
Villiers  has  declined  to  take  any  office.  I  am  about  to  propose 
to  Mr.  Milner  Gibson  to  become  Vice-President  of  the  Board  of 
Trade. 

"  I  remain,  with  sentiments  of  regard  and  respect, 

Yours  very  faithfully, 

J.   liUSSELL." 

What  were  the  "  other  circumstances "  which  prevented  Lord 
John  Russell  from  inviting  Cobden  to  join  his  Government,  we 
can  only  guess.  It  is  pretty  certain  that  they  related  to  a  pro- 
ject of  which  a  good  deal  had  been  heard  during  the  last  four  or 
avG  months.  There  would  undeniably  have  been  some  difficulty 
in  giving  high  office  in  the  state  to  a  politician  whose  friends 
were  at  the  time  publicly  collecting  funds  for  a  national  testi- 
monial of  a  pecuniary  kind.  Whether  the  Whig  chief  was  glad 
or  not  to  have  this  excuse  for  leaving  Cobden  out  of  his  Cabinet/ 
the  ground  of  the  omission  was  not  unreasonable. 

The  final  meeting  of  the  League  took  place  on  the  same  day  on      / 
which  Lord  John  Eussell  wrote  to  explain  that  he  intended  to    ^ 
show  his  appreciation  of  what  was  due  to  those  "  who  had  main- 
tained in  our  recent  struggle  the  principles  of  Free  Trade  against 
Monopoly,"  by  offering  Mr.  Gibson  a  post  without  either  dignity 
or  influence.     The  Leaguers  were  too  honestly  satisfied  with  the 
triumph  of  the  cause  for  which  they  had  banded  themselves  to-      , 
gether  eight  years  ago,  to  take  any  interest  in  so  small  a  matter  as  \/' 
the  distribution  of  good  things  in  Downing  Street  and  Whitehall. 
That  was  no  affair  of  theirs.     It  was  enough  for  them  that  they 
had  removed  a  great  obstacle  to  the  material  prosperity  of  the  V 
country,  that  they  had  effectually  vindicated  what  the  best  among 
them  believed  to  be  an  exalted  and  civilizing  social  principle,  and 
that  in  doing  this  they  had  failed  to  reverence  no  law,  shaken  no 
institution,  and  injured  no  class  nor  order.     It  is  impossible  not 
to  envy  the  feelings  of  men  who  had  done  so  excellent  a  piece  of 
work  for  their  country  in  so  spirited  and  honorable  a  way.    When 
the  announcement  was  made  from  the  Chair  that  the  Anti-Corn- 


272  LIFE   OF    COBDEN.  [1846. 

Law  League  stood  conditionally  dissolved,  a  deep  silence  fell  upon 
tliem  all,  as  they  reflected  that  they  were  about  finally  to  separate 

y  from  friends  with  whom  they  had  been  long  and  closely  con- 
nected, and  that  they  had  no  longer  in  common  the  pursuit  of  an 
object  which  had  been  the  most  cherished  of  their  lives.^ 

The  share  which  the  League  had  in  procuring  the  consummation 
of  the  commercial  policy  that  Huskisson  had  first  opened  four- 
and-twenty  years  before,  is  not  always  rightly  understood.  One 
practical  effect  of  a  mischievous  kind  has  followed  from  this 
misunderstanding.  It  has  led  people  into  the  delusion  that 
organization,  if  it  be  only  an  a  sufficiently  gigantic  scale  and 
sufficiently  unrelenting  in  its  importunity,  is  capable  of  winning 

I  .'  any  virtuous  cause.  The  agitation  against  the  Corn  Laws  had 
several  pretty  obvious  peculiarities,  which  ought  not  to  be  over- 
looked. A  large  and  wealthy  class  had  the  strongest  material 
interest  in  repeal.  What  was  important  was  that  this  class  now 
happened  to  represent  the  great  army  of  consumers.  Protection 
as  a  principle  had  long  ago  loegun  to  give  way,  but  it  might  have 
remained  for  a  long  time  to  come,  if  it  had  not  been  found  in 
intolerable  antagonism  with  the  growing  giant  of  industrial 
interests.  It  is  not  a  piece  of  cynicism,  but  an  important  truth, 
to  say  that  what  brings  great  changes  of  policy  is  the  spontaneous 
shifting  and  readjustment  of  interests,  not  the  discovery  of  new 
principles.  What  the  League  actually  did  was  this.  Its  energetic 
propagandism  succeeded  in  making  people  believe  in  a  general 
t- way  that  Free  Trade  was  right,  when  the  time  should  come. 
When  the  Irish  famine  brought  the  crisis,  public  opinion  was 
Unprepared  for  the  solution,  and  when  protection  on  corn  had 
disappeared,  there  was  nothing  left  to  support  protection  on  sugar 
and  ships.  Then,  again,  the  perseverance  of  the  agitation  had  a 
more  direct  effect,  as  has  been  already  seen  from  Cobden's  letters. 

V  It  frightened  the  ruling  class.  First,  it  prevented  Peel,  in  the 
autumn  of  1845,  from  opening  the  ports  by  an  order  in  council. 
Second,  it  forced  the  Whigs  out  of  their  fixed  duty.  Third,  it 
made  the  House  of  Lords  afraid  of  throwing  out  the  repealing 
Bill. 

There  is  another  important  circumstance  which  ought  not  to  be 
left  out  of  sight.  One  secret  of  the  power  of  the  League  both 
over  the  mind  of  Sir  'Robert  Peel,  and  over  Parliament,  arose 
from  the  narrow  character  of  the  representation  at  that  time.  The 
House  of  Commons  to-day  is  a  sufficiently  imperfect  and  distort- 
ing mirror  of  public  judgment  and  feeling.  But  things  were  far 
worse  then.  The  total  number  of  voters  in  the  country  was  not 
much  more  than  three  quarters  of  a  million ;   six  sevenths  of  the 

1  See  Mr.  Bright's  speech,  quoted  in  Mr.  Ashworth's  little  book,  p.  213. 


JEt.  42.]  CESSATION  OF  THE  WORK  OF  THE  LEAGUE.  273- 

male  population  of  the  country  was  excluded  from  any  direct  share 
of  popular  power ;  and  property  itself  was  so  unfairly  represented 
that  Manchester,  with  double  the  value  of  the  property  of  Buck- 
inghamshire, returned  only  two  members,  while  Bucks  returned 
eleven.  It  was  on  this  account,  as  Cobden  said,  it  was  because 
Manchester  could  not  have  its  fair  representation  in  Parliament, 
that  it  was  obliged  to  organize  a  League,  and  raise  an  agitation 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  in  order  to  make 
itself  felt.i  It  was  just  because  the  sober  portion  of  the  House 
of  Commons  were  aware  from  how  limited  and  exclusive  a  source 
they  drew  their  authority,  that  the  League  represented  so  for- 
midable, because  so  unknown,  a  force. 

The  same  thought  was  present  to  the  reflective  mind  of  Peel. 
Cobden  tells  a  story  in  one  of  his  speeches  which  illustrates  this. 
One  evening  in  1848  they  were  sitting  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
when  the  news  came  that  the  government  of  Louis  Philippe  had 
been  overthrown  and  a  republic  proclaimed.  When  the  buzz  of 
conversation  ran  round  the  House,  as  the  startling  intelligence 
was  passed  from  member  to  member,  Cobden  said  to  Joseph 
Hume,  who  sat  beside  him,  "  Go  across  and  tell  Sir  Eobert  Peel." 
Hume  went  to  the  front  bench  opposite,  where  Sir  Eobert  was 
sitting  in  his  usual  isolation.  "This  comes,"  said  Peel,  when 
Hume  had  whispered  the  catastrophe,  "this  comes  of  trying  to 
govern  the  country  through  a  narrow  representation  in  Parliament,  ^>/ 
without  regarding  the  wishes  of  those  outside.  It  is  what  this 
party  behind  me  wanted  me  to  do  in  the  matter  of  the  Corn 
Laws,  and  I  would  not  do  it."  ^ 

N"ow  that  the  work  was  finally  done,  Cobden  was  free  to  set 
out  on  that  journey  over  Europe,  which  the  doctors  had  urged 
upon  him  as  the  best  means  of  repose,  and  which  he  promised 
himself  should  be  made  an  opportunity  of  diligently  preaching 
the  new  gospel  among  the  economic  Gentiles.  Before  starting  on 
this  long  pilgrimage,  he  went  to  stay  for  a  month  with  his  family 
in  Wales.  Two  days  after  the  final  meeting  of  the  League,  he 
thus  describes  to  one  of  the  earliest  of  his  fellow-workers  the 
frame  of  mind  in  which  it  had  left  him. 

"  I  am  going  into  the  wilderness  to  pray  for  a  return  of  the 
taste  I  once  possessed  for  nature  and  simple  quiet  life.  Here  I 
am,  in  one  day  from  Manchester,  to  the  loveliest  valley  out  of 
paradise.  Ten  years  ago,  before  I  was  an  agitator,  I"  spent  a  day 
or  two  in  this  house.  Comparing  my  sensations  now  with  those 
I  then  experienced,  I  feel  how  much  I  have  lost  in  winning 
public   fame.     The   rough   tempest  has  spoilt  me  for  the  quiet 

1  Speeches,  ii.  482.    July  6,  1848.  2  Speeches,  ii.  548.     Aug.  18,  1859. 

18 


274  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1846. 

haven.  I  fear  I  shall  never  be  able  to  cast  anchor  again.  It 
seems  as  if  some  mesmeric  hand  were  on  my  brain,  or  I  was 
possessed  by  an  unquiet  fiend  urging  me  forward  in  spite  of 
myself.  On  Thursday  I  thought,  as  I  went  to  the  meeting,  that 
I  should  next  day  be  a  quiet  and  happy  man.  Next  day  brings 
me  a  suggestion  from  a  private  friend  of  the  Emperor  of  Russia, 
assuring  me  that  if,  instead  of  going  to  Italy  and  Egypt,  I  would 
take  a  trip  to  St.  Petersburg,  I  could  exercise  an  important 
influence  upon  the  mind  of  Nicholas.  Here  am  I  at  Llangollen, 
blind  to  the  loveliness  of  nature,  and  only  eager  to  be  c^  the  road 
to  Russia,  taking  Madrid,  Vienna,  Berlin,  and  Paris  by  the  way  ! 
Let  me  see  my  boy  to-morrow,  who  waits  my  coming  at  Machyn- 
lleth, and  if  he  do  not  wean  me,  I  am  quite  gone  past  recovery."  ^ 

His  mind  did  not  rest  long.  To  Mr.  Ashworth  he  wrote  at  the 
same  date :  — 

"  Now  I  am  going  to  tell  you  of  fresh  projects  that  have  been 
.  brewing  in  my  brain.  I  have  given  up  all  idea  of  burying  myself 
^  in  Egypt  or  Italy.  I  am  going  on  a  private  agitating  tour  through 
the  continent  of  Europe.  The  other  day  I  got  an  intimation 
from  Sir  Roderick  Murchison,  the  geologist  —  a  friend  and  confi- 
dant of  the  Emperor  of  Russia  —  that  I  should  have  great  influence 
with  him  if  I  went  to  St.  Petersburg.  To-day  I  got  a  letter  from 
the  Mayor  of  Bordeaux,  written  at  Paris  after  dining  at  Duchatel's, 
the  French  Minister,  conveying  a  suggestion  from  the  latter  that 
I  should  cross  to  Dieppe  and  visit  the  King  of  the  French  at  his 
Chateau  of  Eu,  where  he  would  be  glad  to  receive  me  between 
the  4th  and  14th  August. 

"  I  have  had  similar  hints  respecting  Madrid,  Vienna,  and 
Berlin.  Well,  I  will,  with  God's  assistance,  during  the  next 
twelvemonth  visit  all  the  large  states  of  Europe,  see  their  poten- 
tates or  statesmen,  and  endeavor  to  enforce  those  truths  which 
have  been  irresistible  at  home.  Why  should  I  rust  in  inactivity  ? 
If  the  public  spirit  of  my  countrymen  affords  me  the  means  of 
/  travelling  as  their  missionary,  I  will  be  the  first  ambassador  from 
^  the  People  of  this  country  to  the  nations  of  the  continent.  I  am 
impelled  to  this  step  by  an  instinctive  emotion  such  as  never  de- 
ceived me.  I  feel  that  I  could  succeed  in  making  out  a  stronger 
case  for  the  prohibitive  nations  of  Europe  to  compel  them  to 
adopt  a  freer  system,  than  I  had  here  to  overturn  our  protective 
policy.  But  it  is  necessary  that  my  design  should  not  be  made 
public,  for  that  would  create  suspicion  abroad.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  a  friend  or  two,  under  confidence,  I  shall  not  mention  my 
intentions  to  anybody." 

A  few  days  kiter  he  wrote  to  George  Combe,  in  a  mood  of  more 
even  balance :  — 

1  To  Mr.  Paulton.    July  4,  1846.  * 


Mr.  42.]  CESSATION   OF  THE   WORK   OF  THE   LEAGUE.  275 

"  Your  affectionate  letter  of  the  28th  of  June,  has  never  been 
absent  from  my  mind,  although  so  long  unacknowledged.  I 
came  here  last  week,  with  my  wife  and  children,  on  a  visit  to  her 
father's,  and  for  a  quiet  ramble  amongst  the  Welsh  mountains. 
I  thought  I  should  be  allowed  to  be  forgotten  after  my  address  to 
my  constituents.  But  every  post  brings  me  twenty  or  thirty 
letters,  and  such  letters  !  I  am  teased  to  death  by  place-hunters 
of  every  degree,  who  wish  me  to  procure  them  Government  ap- 
pointments. Brothers  of  peers,  ay,  *  lionorables,'  are  amongst  the 
number.  I  have  but  one  answer  for  all,  '  I  would  not  ask  a  favor 
of  the  Ministry  to  serve  my  own  brother.'  Then  I  am  still  im- 
portuned worse  than  ever  by  beggars  of  every  description.  The 
enclosed  is  a  specimen  which  reached  me  this  morning ;  put  it  in 
the  fire.^  I  often  think,  what  must  be  the  fate  of  Lord  John  or 
Peel  with  half  the  needy  aristocracy  knocking  at  the  Treasury 
doors.  Here  is  my  excuse  for  not  having  answered  your  letter 
before. 

"  The  settlement  of  the  Free  Trade  controversy  leaves  the  path 
free  for  other  reforms,  and  Education  must  come  next,  and  when 
I  say  that  Education  has  yet  to  come,  I  need  not  add  that  I 
do  not  look  for  very  great  advances  in  our  social  state  during 
our  generation.  You  ask  me  whether  the  public  mind  is  pre- 
pared for  acting  upon  the  moral  law  in  our  national  affairs.  I 
am  afraid  the  animal  is  yet  too  predominant  in  the  nature  of 
Englishmen,  and  of  men  generally,  to  allow  us  to  hope  that  the 
liigTier  sentiments  will  gain  their  desired  ascendency  in  your 
lifetime  or  mine.  I  have  always  had  one  test  of  the  tendency 
of  the  world :  what  is  its  estimate  of  war  and  warriors,  and  on 
what  do  nations  rely  for  their  mutual  security  ?  Brute  force  is, 
I  fear,  as  much  worshipped  now,  in  the  statues  to  Wellington 
and  the  peerage  to  Gough,  as  they  were  two  thousand  years  ago 
in  the  colossal  proportions  of  Hercules  or  Jupiter.  Our  inter- 
national relations  are  an  armed  truce,  each  nation  relying  entirely 
on  its  power  to  defend  itself  by  physical  force.  We  may  teach 
Christianity  and  morality  in  our  families ;  but  as  a  people  we  are, 
I  fear,  still  animals  in  our  predominant  propensities. 

"  Perhaps  you  will  remember  that,  in  my  little  pamphlets,  I 

1  The  letter  referred  to  purported  to  be  from  a  lady,  who,  having  nothing  but  her 
own  exertions  to  depend  upon,  begged  Mr.  Cobden  to  become  her  "generous  and 
noble-minded  benefactor,"  to  enable  her  to  "begin  to  do  something  for  herself." 
She  says,  "  I  do  not  see  to  use  my  needle  ;  to  rear  jwultry  for  London  and  other 
large  market-towns  is  what  my  wishes  are  lient  upon."  For  this  purpose  she  sug- 
gests that  Mr.  Cobden  should  procure  a  loan  of  5000/.  to  be  advanced  by  himself 
and  nine  other  friends  in  Manchester,  where,  she  delicately  insinuates,  he  is  so 
much  beloved  that  the  process  will  be  a  very  easy  one  for  him.  The  loan,  princi- 
pal and  interest,  she  promises  shall  be  faithfully  paid  in  ten  yeai-s  at  the  most.  The 
writer  mentions  that  she  has  her  eye  upon  a  small  estate  which  will  serve  her 
purpose. 


276  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1846. 

dwelt  a  good  deal,  ten  years  ago,  upon  the  influence  of  our  foreign 
policy  upon  our  home  affairs.  I  am  as  strongly  as  ever  impressed 
witli  this  view.  I  don't  think  the  nations  of  the  earth  will  have 
a  chance  of  advancing  morally  in  their  domestic  concerns  to  the 
degree  of  excellence  which  we  sigh  for,  until  the  international 
relations  of  the  world  are  put  upon  a  different  footing.  The  pres- 
ent system  corrupts  society,  exhausts  its  wealth,  raises  up  false 
gods  for  liero-worship,  and  fixes  before  tlie  eyes  of  the  rising 
generation  a  spurious  if  glittering  standard  of  glory.  It  is  be- 
cause 1  do  believe  that  the  principle  of  Free  Trade  is  calculated 
to  alter  the  relations  of  the  world  for  the  better,  in  a  moral  point 
of  view,  that  T  bless  God  I  have  been  allowed  to  take  a  promi- 
nent part  in  its  advocacy.  Still,  do  not  let  us  be  too  gloomy. 
If  we  can  keep  the  world  from  actual  war,  and  I  trust  railroads, 
steamboats,  cheap  postage,  and  our  own  example  in  Free  Trade 
will  do  that,  a  great  impulse  will  from  this  time  be  given  to  social 
reforms.  The  public  mind  is  in  a  practical  mood,  and  it  will  now 
precipitate  itself  upon  Education,  Temperance,  reform  of  Crim- 
inals, care  of  Physical  Health,  etcetera,  with  greater  zeal  than 

ever 

"  Now,  my  dear  friend,  for  a  word  or  two  upon  a  very  delicate 
personal  matter.  You  have  seen  the  account  of  an  ebullition  of 
a  pecuniary  kind  which  is  taking  place  in  the  country,  a  demon- 
stration in  favor  of  me  exclusively  to  the  neglect  of  others  who 
have  labored  long  and  zealously  with  me  in  the  cause  of  Free 
Trade.  I  feel  deeply  the  injustice  of  passing  over  Bright  and 
Villiers,  to  say  nothing  of  others  ;  and  nothing  but  the  conviction 
that  I  am  guiltless  of  ever  having  arrogated  to  myself  the  merit 
of  others  consoles  me  in  the  painful  position  in  which  the  public 
have  placed  me,  of  being  the  vehicle  for  diverting  the  reward 
from  men  who  are  as  worthy  of  all  honor  as  myself.  But  I  wish 
to  speak  to  you  upon  a  still  more  delicate  view  of  this  unpalatable 
affair.  I  do  not  like  to  be  recompensed  for  a  public  service  at 
all,  and  I  am  sensible  that  my  moral  influence  will  be  impaired 
by  the  fact  of  my  receiving  a  tribute  in  money  from  the  public. 
I  should  have  preferred  to  have  either  refused  it,  or  to  have  done 
a  glorious  service  by  endowing  a  college.  But  as  an  honest  man, 
and  as  a  father  and  a  husband,  I  cannot  refuse  to  accept  the 
money.  You  will  probably  be  surprised  when  I  tell  you  that  I 
have  shared  the  fate  of  nearly  all  leaders  in  revolutions  or  great 
reforms,  by  the  complete  sacrifice  of  my  private  prospects  in  life. 
In  a  word  I  was  a  poor  man  at  the  close  of  my  agitation.  I  shall 
not  go  into  details,  because  it  would  involve  painful  reminis- 
cences ;  but  suffice  it  to  say  that  whilst  the  Duke  of  Richmond 
was  taunting  me  with  the  profits  of  my  business,  T  was  suffering 
the  complete  loss  of  my  private  fortune,  and  I  am  not  now  afraid 


iET.42.]  THE  NATIONAL  TESTIMONIAL.  277 

to  confess  to  you  tjiat  my  health  of  body  and  peace  of  mind  have 
suffered  more  in  consequence  of  private  anxieties  during  the  last 
two  years,  than  from  my  public  labors.  With  strong  domestic 
feelings  and  with  an  orderly  mind,  which  was  peculiarly  sensitive 
to  the  immorality  of  risking  the  happiness  of  those  whom  nature 
had  given  the  first  claim  on  me,  for  the  sake  of  a  public  object,  I 
experienced  a  conflict  between  the  demands  of  my  responsible 
public  station  and  the  prior  duties  which  I  owed  to  my  family, 
which  altogether  nearly  paralyzed  me.  I  should  have  retired 
from  public  life  last  August,  had  not  some  of  my  wealthy  co- 
adjutors in  Lancashire  forced  me  to  continue  at  my  post,  and  had 
they  not  compelled  me  to  leave  to  them  the  cares  of  my  private 
business.  It  is  owing  to  the  knowledge  which  my  neighbors  in 
Lancashire  have  of  the  sacrifices  which  I  have  incurred,  that  the 
subscription  has  been  entered  into ;  and  I  wish  you  to  be  in  pos- 
session of  the  facts,  because  you  are  the  man  of  all  others  whom 
I  sliould  wish  to  possess  the  materials  for  forming  a  correct 
knowledge  of  the  motives  which  compel  me  to  take  a  course  that 
jars  at  first  sight  on  our  notion  of  purity  and  disinterestedness."  ^ 

It  is  not  necessary  to  enter  into  a  discussion  of  the  propriety  of 
Cobden's  acceptance  of  the  large  sum  of  money,  between  seventy- 
five  and  eighty  thousand  pounds,  which  were  collected  in  com- 
memoration of  his  services  to  what  the  subscribers  counted  a  great 
public  cause.  The  chief  Leaguers  anxiously  discussed  the  project 
of  a  joint  testimonial  to  Cobden,  Mr.  Bright,  and  Mr.  Villiers,  all 
three  to  be  included  in  a  common  subscription.^  But  nobody 
could  say  how  the  fund  was  to  be  divided.  It  was  then  discussed 
whether  as  much  money  could  be  collected  for  the  three  as  for 
Cobden  individually,  and  it  was  agreed  that  it  could  not,  for  it 
was  Cobden  who  united  the  sections  of  the  Free  Trade  party.  He 
had  undoubtedly  sacrificed  good  chances  of  private  prosperity  for 
the  interest  of  the  community,  and  it  would  have  been  a  painful 
and  discreditable  satire  on  human  nature  if  he  had  been  left  in 
ruin,  while  everybody  around  him  was  thriving  on  the  results  of 
his  unselfish  devotion.  It  is  true  that  many  others  had  made 
sacrifices  both  of  time  and  money,  but  they  had  not  sacrificed 
everything  as  Cobden  had  done.  The  munificence  of  the  sub- 
scription was  singularly  honorable  to  those  who  contributed  to  it. 
No  generous  or  reasonable  man  will  think  that  it  impairs  by  one 
jot  the  purity  of  the  motives  that  prompted  the  exertions  of  the 
public  benefactor  whose  great  services  it  commemorated  and 
rewarded. 

1  To  Geo.  Combe.     July  14,  1846. 

^  The  League  had  alreaiiy  voted  a  present  of  ten  thousand  pounds  to  Mr.  George 
"Wilson,  their  indefatigable  chairman. 


278  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [184B. 

CHAPTEE    XYIII. 

TOUR  OVER   EUROPE. 

Accompanied  by  his  wife,  Cobden  landed  at  Dieppe  on  the  5th 
of  August,  1846.  He  arrived  in  the  Thames  on  his  return  on  the 
11th  of  October,  1847.  He  was  absent,  therefore,  from  England 
,for  fourteen  months,  and  in  the  interval  he  had  travelled  in  France, 
^  Spain,  Italy,  Germany,  and  Eussia.  His  reception  was  every- 
where that  of  a  great  discoverer  in  a  science  which  interests  tlie 
bulk  of  mankind  much  more  keenly  than  any  other,  the  science 
of  wealth.  He  had  persuaded  the  richest  country  in  the  world  to 
revolutionize  its  commercial  policy.  People  looked  on  him  as  a 
man  who  had  found  out  a  momentous  secret.  In  nearly  every 
important  town  that  he  visited  in  every  great  country  in  Europe, 
they  celebrated  his  visit  by  a  banquet,  toasts,  and  congratulatory 
speeches.  He  had  interviews  with  the  Pope,  with  three  or  four 
kings,  with  ambassadors,  and  with  all  the  prominent  statesmen. 
He  never  lost  an  opportunity  of  speaking  a  word  in  season.  Even 
from  the  Pope  he  entreated  that  His  Holiness's  influence  might 
be  used  against  bull-fighting  in  Spain.  They  were  not  all  con- 
verted, but  they  all  listened  to  him,  and  they  all  taught  him 
something,  whether  they  chose  to  learn  anything  from  him  in 
return  or  not. 

The  travellers  passed  rather  more  than  eleven  weeks  in  Spain, 
and  at  the  beginning  of  the  new  year  found  themselves  in  Italy. 
Here  they  remained  from  January  until  the  end  of  June.  From 
Venice  they  went  north  to  the  Austrian  capital,  and  thence  to 
Berlin.  In  the  first  week  in  August  Mrs.  Cobden  started  for 
England,  while  her  husband  turned  his  face  eastwards.  In  Eus- 
sia he  passed  five  weeks,  and  three  weeks  more  were  usefully 
spent  in  the  journey  home  by  way  of  Lubeck  and  Hamburg. 

When  he  returned  to  England  he  had  such  a  conspectus  and 
cosmorama  of  Europe  in  his  mind  as  was  possessed  by  no  states- 
man in  the  country ;  of  the  great  economic  currents,  of  the  special 
commercial  interests,  of  the  conflicting  political  issues,  of  the  lead- 
ing personages.  Unless  knowledge  of  such  things  is  a  super- 
fluity for  statesmen  whose  strong  point  is  asserted  to  be  foreign 
policy,  Cobden  was  more  fit  to  discuss  the  foreign  policy  of  this 
country  than  any  man  in  it.  In  less  tlian  a  year  after  his  return, 
Europe  was  shaken  by  a  tremendous  convulsion.  The  kings 
whom  he  had  seen  were  forced  froiii  their  thrones,  and  the  greatest 
of  the  statesmen  of  the  old  world  fled  out  in  haste  from  Vienna. 


^t.42.]  TOim  OVER  EUROPE.  279 

Neither  they  nor  Cobden  foresaw  the  storm  that  was  so  close 
upon  them ;  but  Cobden  at  least  was  aware  of  those  movements 
in  Paris  which  were  silently  unchaining  the  revolutionary  forces. 
The  following  passage  is  from  a  letter  written  ten  years  later,  but 
this  is  a  proper  place  for  it :  — 

"  When  I  was  in  Paris  in  1846,  I  saw  Guizot,  and  though  I 
had  weighed  him  accurately  as  a  politician,  I  pronounced  him  an 
intellectual  pedant  and  a  moral  prude,  with  no  more  knowledge 
of  men  and  things  than  is  possessed  by  professors  who  live  among 
their  pupils,  and  he  seemed  to  me  to  have  become  completely 
absorbed  in  the  hard  and  unscrupulous  will  of  Louis  Philippe. 
At  that  time  I  was  the  hero  of  a  successful  agitation,  and  was 
taken  into  the  confidence  of  all  the  leaders  of  the  opposition  who 
were  getting  up  the  movement  which  led  first  to  the  banquets, 
and  next  to  the  revolution.     I  was  at  Odillon  Barrot's,  and  at 
Girardin's,  and  met  in  private  conclave   Beaumont,  Tocquevill6, 
Duvergier  de  Hauranne,  Leon  Faucher,  Bastiat,  and  others.      I 
was  of  course  a  good  deal  consulted  as  to  the  way  of  managing 
such  things,  and  am  afraid  I  must  plead  guilty  to  having  been  an 
accessory  before  the  fact  to  much  that  was  afterwards  done  with 
so  little  immediate  advantage  to  those  concerned.     I  remember  in 
particular  telling  Odillon  Barrot,  in  all  sincerity,  that  he  would 
have  made  a  very  successful  agitator  on  an  English  platform.    His 
bluff  figure  and  vehement  style  of  oratory  would  have  almost 
made  him  another  Bright.     But  to  the  point.     I  naturally  made 
inquiries  as  to  what  amount  of  parliamentary  reform  they  were 
aiming  at,  and  to  my  surprise  found  that  all  they  wanted  w^as  a 
small  addition  to  the  electoral  list  (not  exceeding  200,000  voters), 
comprising  'les  capacites,'  the   professions,  and    a  certain  small 
increase  from  a  slightly  reduced  tax-paying  franchise.     Upon  my 
expressing  my  amazement  that  they  should  go  for  such  a  small 
measure  (which,  to   be  sure,  appeared    insignificant  to  me,  just 
fresh  from  the  total  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws),  they  answered  that 
it  would  satisfy  them  for  the    present;  it  would  recognize  the  w 
principle  of  progress ;  and  they  frankly  confessed  that  the  bulk  of 
the  people  were  not  fit  for  the  suffrage,  and  that  there  was  no 
security  for  constitutional   government  excepting  in  a  restricted 
electoral  class.    Well,  when  these  moderate  men  afterwards  brouglit 
forward  their  harmless  scheme,  Guizot  mounted  the  rostrum,  and 
flourished  his  rod,  and  in  true  pedagogical  style  told  them  they 
were  naughty  boys  —  that  they  wanted  to  have  banquets,  which 
were  very  wicked  things,  and  he  would  not  allow  such  doings, 
and  so  he  put  down  Barrot,  Tocqueville,  Bastiat,  and  Co.,  and  up 
rose   Marrast,  Ledru   Ptollin,  and  Co.,  to  fill  their  places.     The 
whole  thing  was  the  result  of  Guizot's  pedantry  and  Louis  Phi- 
lippe's unbelief  in  human  nature.     I  had  a  long  evening's  talk 


280  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

with  the  latter  at  the  Chateau  d'Eu  at  the  same  time,  and  noth- 
ing so  much  struck  me  as  his  contempt  for  the  people  through 
whom  and  for  whom  he  professed  to  rule.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  possible  doubt  (no  Englishman  but  myself  has  so  good  a 
ground  for  offering  an  opinion,  for  no  other  was  in  the  secrets  of 
the  French  reformers)  that  if  Louis  Philippe  had  allowed  an 
addition  of  200,000  voters  to  the  250,000  already  on  the  electoral 
list,  he  would  have  renewed  the  lease  of  the  Orleanist  throne  for 
twenty  years,  and  in  all  probability  have  secured  for  the  Trench 
people  the  permanent  advantages  of  a  constitutional  govern- 
ment." 1 

As  it  happened,  Cobden  arrived  in  Spain  at  the  moment  of  the 
once  famous  marriages  of  the  young  Queen  and  her  sister,  the  one 
to  her  cousin,  Don  Francisco,  the  other  to  the  Duke  of  Montpen- 
sier.  The  Minister  sent  Cobden  and  his  party  tickets  for  the 
ceremony,  and  they  found  themselves  placed  close  to  the  great 
personages  of  the  day.  They  went  to  a  bull-fight,  with  the  emo- 
tions that  the  scene  usually  stirs  in  all  save  Spanish  breasts,  and 
Cobden's  disgust  was  particularly  aroused  by  the  presence  of  the 
Spanish  Primate  at  the  brutal  festival.  ^  Alexander  Dumas,  who 
had  come  to  Madrid  to  write  an  account  of  the  Duke  of  Montpen- 
sier's  marriage,  went  with  Cobden  over  the  Museum  and  the 
Escurial.  At  Seville  Cobden  had  such  a  reception  that  the  news- 
papers assured  their  readers  that  Christopher  Columbus  himself 
could  hardly  have  been  more  enthusiastically  applauded,  or  more 
highly  honored  for  the  new  world  which  he  had  presented  to 
Castille. 

Everywhere  men  were  delighted  by  his  tact  and  address.  He 
made  as  captivating  points  in  a  speech  to  the  traders  of  Cadiz,  the 
farmers  of  Perugia,  or  the  great  nobles  in  Eome,  as  when,  from  a 
wagon,  he  had  addressed  the  rustics  of  a  village  in  the  West  of 
England.  At  Milan  he  charmed  them  by  mentioning  that  if  they 
went  into  a  London  merchant's  office  they  would  find  the  accounts 
kept  on  a  method  which  came  from  Italy ;  and  that  the  great 
centre  of  our  financial  system  w^as  in  a  street  that  was  still  named 
from  the  Lombard  bankers.  At  Florence  he  warmed  the  hearts 
of  those  who  listened  to  him  by  saying  that  he  had  come  to  Tus- 
cany with  the  feelings  of  a  believer  visiting  the  shrines  of  his 
faith.  The  Dutch  and  the  Swiss  owed  to  their  geographical  situ- 
ation a  partial  escape  from  the  protective  system ;  but  to  Tuscany 
belonged  the  glory  of  preceding  the  rest  of  the  world  by  half  a 
century  in  applying  economic  theories  to  legislation.  Let  them 
render  solemn  homage,  he  cried  with  an  outburst  of  true  elo- 

1  To  J.  Parhes,  Dec.  28,  1856. 

2  Richard  Cobden,  "Notes  sur  ses  Voyages,"  etc.  Par  Mdme.  Salis  Schwabe. 
Paris :  Guillaumin,  1879. 


iET.42.]  TOUR  OVER  EUROPE.  281 

quence,  to  the  memory  of  the  great  men  who  had  taught  the  world 
this  great  lesson ;  all  honor  to  Bandini,  who  a  century  before  had 
perceived  the  truth  that  Free  Trade  is  the  only  sure  instrument 
of  prosperity ;  undying  honor  to  Leopoldi,  who,  seizing  the  lamp 
of  science  from  the  hands  of  Bandini,  entered  boldly  into  the 
ways  of  Free  Trade,  then  obscure  and  unknown,  without  flinching 
before  the  obstacles  tliat  ignorance,  prejudice,  and  selfishness  had 
strewn  in  the  path ;  honor  to  Neri,  to  Giovanni  Febbroni,  to 
Fossombroni ;  to  all  those  statesmen,  in  a  word,  who  had  pre- 
served down  to  our  own  days  the  great  work  which  they  had  set 
on  foot.  « 

Mrs.  Cobden  said  that  it  was  fortunate  that  her  husband  had 
not  too  high  an  opinion  of  himself,  or  else  the  Italians  would  have 
turned  his  head,  so  many  attentions,  both  public  and  private,  were 
showered  upon  him.  Even  at  a  tranquil  little  town  like  Perugia 
a  troop  of  musicians  sallied  out  to  serenade  him  at  his  hotel,  tlie 
Agricultural  Society  sent  a  silver  medal  and  a  diploma,  and  in 
the  evening  at  the  Casino  the  concert  was  closed  by  the  recitation 
of  verses  in  honor  of  Richard  Cobden. 

On  their  arrival  at  Genoa,  on  their  return  from  all  these  honors 
(May  20),  they  found  that  O'Connell  had  died  there  the  previous 
day.  They  at  once  proceeded  to  pay  a  visit  to  his  son,  and  from 
O'Connell's  servant,  who  had  been  with  him  for  thirteen  years, 
they  heard  the  circumstances  of  the  great  patriot's  end.^ 

Cobden's  diaries  of  this  long  and  instructive  tour  are  so  copious 
that  they  would  more  than  fill  one  of  these  volumes.  They  afford 
a  complete  economic  panorama  of  the  countries  which  he  visited, 
and  abound  in  acute  observations,  and  judicious  hints  of  all  kinds 
from  the  Free  Trader's  point  of  view.  Their  facts,  however,  are 
now  out  of  date,  and  their  interest  is  mostly  historic.  The  reader 
will  probably  be  satisfied  with  a  moderate  number  of  extracts, 
recording  Cobden's  interviews  with  important  people,  and  his 
impressions  of  historic  scenes. 

Dieppe,  Aug.  6th,  184{). — "  Called  and  left  my  card  with  king's 
aide-de-camp,  at  the  chateau.  The  king  was  out  in  the  forest  for 
a  drive  ;  on  his  return  received  an  invitation  to  call  at  tlie  chateau 
at  eight  o'clock.  We  found  thirty  or  forty  persons  in  the  saloon, 
the  King,  Queen,  and  Madame  Adelaide,  the  King's  sister,  in  the 
middle  of  the  room.  Louis  Philippe  was  very  civil  and  very 
communicative,  talked  much  against  war,  and  ridiculed  the  idea 
of  an  acquisition  of  more  territory,  saying,  'What  would  be  the 
use  of  our  taking  Charleville,  or  Philippeville  ?     Why,  it  would 

1  The  common  report  that  O'Connell  intended  to  quit  Enfi;land  and  close  his 
days  at  Rome  was  untrue  :  on  the  contrary,  his  own  inclination  was  to  stay  at 
Derrynane,  and  the  journey  to  Italy  was  only  undertaken  at  the  urgent  solicitation 
of  his  friends.     He  was  conscious  up  to  the  moment  of  his  death. 


282  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1846. 

give  us  a  dozen  more  bad  deputies,  that 's  all ! '  Said  the  people 
would  not  now  tolerate  war,  and  much  in  that  strain.  He  alluded 
to  the  League  and  my  labors,  but  I  could  not  bring  him  to  the 
subject  of  Free  Trade  as  affecting  his  own  country's  interests.  He 
spoke  of  the  iron  monopoly  of  France  as  being,  if  possible,  worse 
than  our  corn  monopoly.  He  and  the  Queen  spoke  in  high  terms 
of  the  kindness  of  the  English  people  towards  them.  After  this 
short  interview  I  came  away  with  the  impression  that  the  King 
did  not  like  the  close  discussion  of  the  Free  Trade  question,  but 
that  he'  preferred  dwelling  on  generalities.  I  formed  the  opinion 
that  he  is  a  clever  actor,  awrd  perhaps  that  is  all  we  can  say  of  the 
ablest  sovereigns  of  this  or  any  other  country. 

"  He  was  not  very  complimentary  to  Lord  Palmerston,  applying 
to  him  a  French  maxim,  which  may  be  turned  into  the  English 
version,  '  \i  you  bray  a  fool  in  a  mortar,  he  will  remain  a  fool  still/ 
He  repeated  two  or  three  times  that  he  wished  there  were  no 
custom-houses,  but  'how  is  revenue  to  be  raised?'  He  quoted  a 
conversation  with  Washington,  in  which  the  latter  had  deplored 
the  necessity  of  raising  the  whole  of  the  American  revenue  from 
customs'  duties.  I  had  heard  in  England,  before  starting,  that 
Louis  Philippe  was  himself  deeply  interested  in  the  preservation 
of  monopoly ;  and  that  his  large  property  in  forests  would  be  di- 
minished in  value  by  the  free  importation  of  coals  and  iron.  But 
I  will  not  hastily  prejudge  his  Majesty  so  far  as  to  believe,  with- 
out better  proofs,  that  he  is  actuated  by  a  personal  interest  in 
secretly  opposing  the  progress  of  Free  Trade  principles.  It  is 
difficult,  however,  to  conceive  that  a  man  of  his  sagacity  and 
knowledge  can  be  blind  to  the  importance  of  these  principles  in 
consolidating  the  peace  of  empires." 

''Paris,  August  10th. — Early  in  the  morning  a  call  from  Dom- 
ville,  my  old  French  master ;  engaged  him  to  give  me  an  hour's 
instruction  every  morning  during  my  stay  in  Paris.^  Afterwards 
Horace  Say  called,  a  noble-looking  man  —  a  rare  phrenological  and 
physiognomical  development." 

''August  15th,  Saturday.  —  French  lesson.  Went  with  Leon 
Faucher  to  call  upon  M.  Thiers  ;  walked  and  gossiped  in  his  gar- 
den, and  talked  without  reserve  upon  Free  Trade.  I  warned 
him  not  to  pronounce  an  opinion  against  us,  thus  to  fall  into  the 
same  predicament  as  Peel  did.  He  seems  never  to  have  thought 
upon  the  subject,  but  promises  fairly.  A  lively  little  man  with- 
out dignity,  and  with  nothing  to  impress  you  with  a  sense  of 
power." 

"Barcelona,  Decemher  Sth. —  Peached  Barcelona  at  half-past  five 
o'clock;  as  it  was  half  an  hour  after  sunset,  the  health  officers  did 

1  By  his  diligent  use  of  this  opportunity  Cobden  succeeded  in  acquiring  a  really 
good  command  over  the  French  language  for  colloquial  and  other  purposes. 


^T.42.]  TOUR  OVER  EUROPE.  283 

not  visit  us,  and  we  were  shut  up  in  our  floating  prison  till  the 
following  morning.  This  system  of  requiriDg  pratique  at  every 
port  for  vessels  in  the  coasting  trade  is  most  useless  and  vexa- 
tious, and  would  be  submitted  to  by  none  but  Spaniards.  They 
shrug  their  shoulders  like  Turks,  and  say,  'It  was  always  so.' 
The  waiter  on  the  steamer  told  us  that  the  best  part  of  the  profits 
of  his  situation  came  from  smuggling,  and  that  the  smuggling  was 
all  done  through  the  connivance  of  the  government  employes  ;  he 
stated  that  the  contraband  goods  conveyed  by  him  were  generally 
carried  on  shore  by  the  custom-house  officers  themselves.  This 
agrees  with  all  that  I  heard  from  the  consuls  and  merchants  on 
the  Mediterranean  coast.  The  French  consul  at  Carthagena 
remarked,  whilst  speaking  of  the  universal  corruption  of  the  cus- 
tom-house officers,  '  With  money  you  might  pass  the  tower  of 
Notre  Dame  through  the  custom-house  without  observation,  but 
without  money  you  could  not  pass  this!  holding  up  his  pocket 
handkerchief." 

"Perpijnan,  Decenibei^  14:th  and  15th. —  Luxuriated  in  the  com- 
forts of  a  French  inn.  I  felt  almost  ready  to  hug  the  furniture, 
kiss  the  white  table-cloth,  and  shake  hands  with  the  waiters,  so 
attractive  did  they  all  look  after  my  Spanish  discomforts !  Sat 
indoors  and  wrote  letters.  Walked  once  only  into  the  town,  an 
irregular,  confined,  and  ugly  fortified  place.  The  only  annoyance 
I  experienced  was  from  the  military  music  and  the  parading  and 
drilling  of  the  troops." 

"  Narhonne,  December  16th.  —  Left  Perpignan  this  morning  at 
eleven  o'clock.  The  road  to  Narbonne  passed  along  the  marshy 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean ;  very  uninteresting  scenery.  But 
the  sensation  of  passing  along  a  French  road  in  an  English  car- 
riage was  quite  delightful  after  the  Spanish  travelling.  The  men 
wearing  the  blue  blouse.  What  a  contrast  in  the  appearance  of 
the  two  people !  On  one  side  the  mountain,  the  grave,  sombre, 
dignified,  dark  Spaniard ;  here  the  lively,  supple,  facetious,  amia- 
ble Frenchman,  who  seems  ready  to  adapt  himself  to  any  mood 
to  please  you." 

"  Montpellier,  Decemher  17th.  —  Separated  from  our  travelling 
companions  ^  this  morning  at  Narbonne ;  they  started  at  eight 
o'clock  for  Toulouse,  and  we  at  the  same  hour  for  Montpellier. 
Our  road  lay  along  a  ricli  and  populous  but  uninteresting  coun- 
try, through  Beziers,  and  for  some  distance  close  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean. The  people  were  busy  in  the  fields,  cutting  off  the  long 
dry  shoots  of  the  vines  with  a  pair  of  pruning  shears,  and  leaving 
nothing  but  the  stumps.  When  within  ten  miles  of  Montpellier, 
snow  began  to  fall,  and  it  continued  during  the  rest  of  the  jour- 
ney." 

1  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Schwabe. 


284  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1847. 

"  Nice,  Jan.  3d,  1847.  —  Sir  George  Napier  called ;  lost  his  left 
arm  at  Ciudad  Rodrigo ;  is  younger  brother  of  the  conqueror  of 
Scinde,  brother  of  the  historian  of  the  Peninsular  war,  and  of  the 
commodore.  Told  me  some  anecdotes  of  the  wars  with  the  Caffirs 
at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  where  he  was  governor  seven  years. 
Says  the  Hottentots  make  good  soldiers  when  officered  by  Eng- 
lish ;  described  a  regiment  of  them  (dragoons),  commanded  by  his 
son  ;  very  small  men,  but  superior  to  the  Caffirs  or  Dutch  Boers  ; 
that  they  required  restraining,  so  daring  their  courage,  etc.  This 
confirms  my  opinion  that  all  races  of  men  are  equal  in  valor  when 
placed  under  like  circumstances." 

"  JVice,  Jan.  4:th.  —  Saw  a  large  number  of  men  assembled  in 
the  open  place  ;  peasants  chiefly,  conscripts  for  the  army  ;  w^ent 
amongst  them,  a  sturdy-looking  set,  and  apparently  not  dissatis- 
fied with  their  fate ;  am  told  they  are  generally  only  liable  to 
serve  for  fourteen  months.  Called  on  M.  Lacroix,  the  Consul, 
who  said  the  government  of  Sardinia  has  a  monopoly  of  salt,  gun- 
powder, and  tobacco  ;  that  the  province  or  county  of  Nice  is  not 
included  in  the  general  customs-law  of  the  kingdom,  but  has  its 
own  privileges  ;  that  corn  from  foreign  countries  pays  a  duty,  but 
that  all  other  articles,  excepting  those  monopolized  by  govern- 
ment, are  imported  free.  Called  upon  an  old  Frenchman,  named 
Sergent,  in  his  ninety-seventh  year,  who  acted  a  prominent  part 
in  the  scenes  of  the  first  revolution,  and  is  one  of  the  few  men 
living  who  signed  or  voted  for  the  execution  of  the  king ;  was 
originally  an  engraver,  and  there  were  several  of  his  productions 
on  the  walls  of  his  room,  but  nothing  commemorative  of  Napo- 
leon's exploits."  ^ 

"  Nice,  Jan.  5th.  —  Dined  with  Mr.  Davenport,  and  met  M.  Ser- 
gent. Took  tea  with  Sir  George  Napier  and  Lady  N. ;  met  M. 
Gastand,  a  merchant  of  the  town,  who  told  me  that  woollens  are 
imported  from  France  into  Nice,  and  again  smuggled  into  that 
country,  the  drawback  of  twenty  per  cent  allowed  in  France  upon 
the  exportation  affording  a  profit  on  this  singular  traffic;  says  that 
the  refined  sugar  exported  from  Marseilles  receives  a  drawback  of 
six  per  cent,  and  that  this  sugar  is  sold  cheaper  in  Nice  than  in 
France." 

"  Genoa,  Jan.  13th.  —  This  morning  the  Marquis  d'Azeglio 
called,  with  Mr.  William  Gibbs  —  the  former  a  Piedmontese  who 
has  written  poetry,  romances,  and  political  works,  and  is  also  an 
artist.  He  told  me  he  had  been  expelled  from  Rome  by  the  late 
Pope,  and  from  Lombardy  and  Florence,  in  consequence  of  his 

1  Sergent  is  commonly  credited  with  a  leading  share  in  the  organization  and 
direction  of  the  September  Massacres  in  1792  ;  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  supposed  to 
have  saved  several  victims  from  the  guillotine.  Louis  Philippe,  who  had  been  his 
colleague  in  the  Jacobin  Club,  gave  him  a  pension  of  1800  francs. 


iET.43.]  TOUR   OVER  EUROPE.  285 

writings.  An  amiable  and  intelligent  man,  evincing  rational 
views  upon  the  moral  progress  of  his  country,  and  deprecating 
revolutionary  violence  as  inimical  to  the  advance  of  liberal-  prin- 
ciples. 

"  Genoa,  Jan.  16th.  —  Called  on  Dr. and  Mr.  Brown  (Con- 
sul) ;  the  latter  showed  me  a  copy  of  Junius,  with  numerous  notes 
in  pencil  by  Home  Tooke  on  the  margin ;  described  the  dema- 
gogue, whom  he  knew  personally,  as  a  finished  scoundrel.  In 
the  evening  dined  w^ith  a  party  of  about  fifty  persons.  Marquis 
d'Azeglio  president.  The  consuls  of  France,  Spain,  Belgium,  and 
Tuscany  present,  as  well  as  several  of  the  Genoese  nobles,  and 
merchants  of  different  countries.  French  was  universally  spoken. 
My  speech  was  intended  for  the  ministers  at  Turin  ratlier  than 
my  hearers.  In  this  country,  where  there  is  no  representative 
system,  public  opinion  has  no  direct  mode  of  infiuencing  the 
policy  of  the  state,  and  therefore  I  used  such  arguments  as  were 
calculated  to  have  weight  with  the  government,  and  induce  them  to 
favor  Free  Trade  as  a  means  of  increasing  the  national  revenue." 

"  Genoa,  Jan.  17th.  —  In  the  evening  M.  Papa  called  and  re- 
mained for  a  long  talk  about  the  affairs  of  the  country.  The  law 
for  the  division  of  the  landed  property  on  the  death  of  proprietors 
is  nearly  the  same  here  as  in  France,  it  being  shared  equally  by 
the  children.  An  entail  can  be  settled  upon  the  eldest  son  only 
with  the  consent  of  the  king,  and  it  is  not  willingly  granted.  The 
nobles  or  patricians  of  Genoa  are  all  Marquises,  they  having  de- 
rived the  title  from  Charles  the  Fifth  of  Spain.  The  present  rep- 
resentatives of  these  old  families  have  generally  much  degenerated 
from  their  energetic  and  public-spirited  ancestors. 

"  Genoa,  Jan.  ISth.  —  In  the  evening:  I  visited  the  jT^overnor 
(Marchese  Paulucci)  at  his  reception.  A  large  party  filled  his 
rooms,  some  dancing ;  a  large  majority  of  the  men,  officers  in  the 
army.  The  governor  thanked  me  for  the  tone  in  which  I  had 
spoken  at  the  public  dinner  given  to  me  on  Saturday  ;  said  that 
he  had  naturally  felt  a  little  anxious  to  know  how  the  proceedings 
had  been  conducted,  and  complimented  me  upon  my  tact,  etc.^ 
In  speaking  about  the  power  of  Kussia  to  make  an  irruption  into 
Europe,  I  expressed  an  opinion  that  she  had  not  the  money  to 
march  40,000  soldiers  out  of  her  territory;  he  agreed  with  me, 

1  "  Although  disposed  to  be  grateful  for  their  public  banquets  of  which  I  have 
had  upwards  of  a  dozen  in  Italy,  besides  private  parties  without  number,  yet  I  can 
see  other  motives  besides  compliments  to  me  in  their  meetings.  In  the  first  place 
the  old  spirit  of  rivalry  has  been  at  woik  amongst  the  different  towns.  But  sec- 
ondly, the  Italian  Liberals  have  seized  upon  my  presence  as  an  excuse  for  holding 
a  meeting  on  a  public  question,  to  make  speeches  and  offer  toasts,  off  en  for  the  frst 
time.  They  consider  this  a  step  gained,  and  so  it  is.  And  I  have  been  sometimes 
surprised  that  the  government  have  allowed  it.  In  Austrian  Italy  such  demonsti-a- 
tions  are  quite  unprecedented."  —  Cobden  to  George  Combe,  June,  1847. 


286  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1847. 

and  mentioned  an  anecdote  in  confirmation.  He  said  that  when 
he  was  military  governor  of  a  district  in  the  Caucasus,  he  was 
applied  to  for  a  plan  of  operations  for  the  invasion  of  Persia; 
that,  when  he  handed  in  to  the  Minister  his  estimate  of  the  num- 
ber of  troops  to  be  set  in  motion,  the  latter  was  so  surprised  at 
the  smallness  of  the  force  that  he  declared  it  was  not  worthy  of 
the  occasion,  and  that  he  could  not  present  it  to  the  Emperor. 
*  But  how  will  you  transport  a  greater  number  of  men  to  the 
scene  of  operations  if  I  add  them  to  my  estimate  ? '  said  the  gen- 
eral. '  Oh  I  we  must  build  boats  and  construct  wagons,'  was  the 
reply.  '  Where  is  the  money  to  come  fi»om  ? '  was  the  rejoinder. 
At  last  the  plan  was  laid  before  the  Emperor,  who  saw  the  diffi- 
culty and  confirmed  the  view  of  the  general." 

"  Rome,  Jan.  22d.  —  In  Tuscany  no  corn  law  of  any  kind  has 
been  allowed  to  exist  by  the  present  dynasty  for  many  genera- 
tions. Mr.  Lloyd  told  me  an  anecdote  of  one  of  the  leaders  of 
the  revolutionary  party  of  1831,  who,  when  asked  by  him  what 
practical  reforms  he  wished  to  carry  by  a  change  in  the  govern- 
ment, remarked  that  one  of  the  grievances  he  wished  to  remedy 
was  the  want  of  adequate  protection  for  the  land.  So  that  had 
this  patriot  been  able  to  induce  the  people  to  upset  the  Grand 
Duke's  authority,  he  would  have  rewarded  them  with  a  Corn 
Law !  Was  told  that  the  grass  of  which  the  far-famed  Leghorn 
bonnets  are  made,  can  only  be  grown  in  perfection  in  Tuscany, 
that  it  has  been  sown  elsewhere,  but  without  success,  and  that  the 
seed  from  which  it  is  grown  is  the  produce  of  a  few  fields  only  ; 
inquire  further  on  my  return  about  this.  Left  Leghorn  at  six 
o'clock  for  Civita  Vecchia,  and  arrived  there  at  eight  the  follow- 
ing morning Left  at  half-past  twelve  for  Eome,  the  road 

lying  along  the  beach  for  several  miles.  Almost,  immediately  on 
quitting  the  town  the  country  assumed  the  character  of  a  wild 
common,  covered  with  shrubs  and  tufts  of  long  grass,  and  this 
neglected  appearance  of  the  soil  continued  with  slight  interrup- 
tions of  cultivated  patches  as  long  as  daylight  lasted.  Noticed 
the  fine  bullocks  of  a  light  gray  color,  with  dark  shoulders,  and 
having  very  long  branching  horns,  noble-looking  animals.  It  w^as 
an  indistinct  moonlight  as  we  came  near  Rome On  turn- 
ing a  corner  of  the  road  we  came  suddenly  upon  a  full  and  close 
view  of  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's,  which  stood  out  boldly  in  tlie 
evening  sky." 

"  Rome,  Jan.  2Sd.  —  The  effect  of  the  colonnade  is  much  im- 
paired by  the  high  square  buildings  of  the  Vatican,  which  rise 
high  above  on  the  right,  and  detract  even  from  the  appearance  of 
the  great  facade.  On  the  first  sight  of  the  interior,  I  was  not 
struck  so  much  with  its  grandeur  or  sublimity,  as  with  the  beauty 
and  richness  of  its  details.     I  felt  impressed  with  more  solemnity 


.iET.43.]  TOUR   OVER  EUROPE.  287 

in  entering  York  Minster  for  the  first  time  than  in  St.  Peter's. 
The  glare  and  glitter  of  so  much  gold  and  such  varieties  of  mar- 
ble distract  the  eye,  and  prevent  it  taking  in  the  whole  form 
of  the  building  in  one  coup-d'oeil,  as  we  do  in  the  simple  stone  of 
our  unadorned  Gothic  Cathedrals.  I  was  disappointed  too  in 
the  statues,  many  of  which  are  poor  things." 

"  Rome,  Jan.  2bth. —  ....  Then  to  the  Vatican,  and  passed 
a  couple  of  hours  in  walking  leisurely  through  the  numerous  gal- 
leries of  sculpture  where  the  enthusiastic  admirer  of  the  art  may 
revel  to  intoxication  amidst  the  most  perfect  forms ;  here  I  was 
more  than  satisfied.  I  had  not  pictured  to  myself  anything  so 
extensive  or  varied.  Not  only  is  the  human  figure  of  both  sexes 
and  all  ages  in  every  possible  graceful  attitude  transferred  to  mar- 
ble, which  all  but  breathes  and  moves,  but  there  are  perfect 
models  of  animals  too,  and  all  arranged  with  consummate  taste 
and  skill  in  rooms  that  are  worthy  of  enshrining  such  treasures. 
The  Laocoon  to  my  eye  is  the  masterpiece.  The  Apollo  Belvidere 
is  perfect  in  anatomy,  but  the  features  express  no  feeling.  Saw 
Eaphael's  masterpiece ;  the  drawing  faultless,  but  the  subjects 
w^ere  unhappily  dictated  by  monkish  patrons,  and  they  confined 
the  artist  too  much  to  the  expression  of  a  very  limited  range  of 
sentiments,  as  veneration,  etc." 

"  Feb.  8th.  —  In  the  evening  to  a  ball  at  the  French  embassy,  in 
the  Colonna  Palace  —  a  magnificent  suite  of  rooms,  filled  with 
Italians,  French,  and  English.  Saw  Count  Kossi  for  the  first 
time  (the  Ambassador),  a  sharp-faced,  intellectual-looking  man ; 
I  suspect  he  is  more  of  the  diplomatist  than  the  political  econo- 
mist, and  more  of  a  politician  than  a  Free  Trader.  Met  the 
young  Prince  Broglie,  an  intelligent  youth  ;  was  introduced  to 
Antonelli,  the  Finance  Minister;  and  had  a  long  conversation 
with  Grassellini,  the  Governor  of  Eome,  urging  him  to  signalize 
his  reign  over  the  city  by  lighting  it  with  gas,  and  laying  down 
foot  pavements.     Left  at  twelve  o'clock." 

"Feb.  lOth.  —  I  was  entertained  at  a  public  dinner  in  the  hall 
of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  ;  about  thirty-five  persons  present, 
Marquis  Potenziani  in  the  chair  ;  Prince  Corsini,  very  aged.  Prince 
Canino  (Bonaparte),  Duke  of  Bracciano  (Torlonia),  Marquis  Dra- 
gonetti,  etc.,  amongst  the  guests.  The  healths  of  the  Pope  and 
the  Queen  of  England  drank  together  as  one  toast !  I  spoke  in 
English,  about  a  dozen  of  the  company  appearing  to  understand 
me.  Doctor  Pantaleone  then  read  an  Italian  translation  of  my 
speech,  which  was  well  received  and  elicited  cheers  for  the  trans- 
lator from  those  who  had  understood  English.  A  Doctor  Masi,  a 
celebrated  improvisatore,  delivered  an  improvisation  in  the  course 
of  the  evening  upon  myself ;  his  look  and  gestures  were  strikingly 
eloquent,  even  to  one  who  could  not  understand  his  language. 


288  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1847. 

There  was  a  wild  expression  of  inspiration  in  his  countenance 
which  realized  the  ideal  of  a  poet's  tine  frenzy,  and  the  effect  was 
heightened  by  his  long  black  hair,  which  streamed  from  a  high 
pale  brow  down  upon  his  shoulders.  His  emotions  imparted  to 
the  audience  an  electrical  effect,  which  now  roused  them  to  im- 
moderate excitement  and  next  melted  them  to  tears.  One  of  his 
verses  produced  an  unanimous  call  for  an  encore ;  he  paused  for  a 
moment,  drew  his  fingers  tlirough  his  hair,  then  tried  to  reproduce 
the  verse,  but  there  came  forth  another  cast  of  rhymes.  His  last 
verse,  which  drew  tears  from  those  around,  was  translated  to  me, 
and  conveyed  this  sentiment :  *  When  you  go  back  to  England, 
say  you  found  Italy  a  corpse,  but  upon  it  was  planted  a  green 
branch,  whicli  will  one  day  flower  again  and  bring  forth  fruit.' 
The  dinner  went  off'  with  great  spirit,  and,  remembering  that  we 
were  sitting  so  near  the  walls  of  the  Vatican,  1  thought  it  the 
most  cheering  proof  of  the  wide-spread  sympathy  for  Free  Trade 
principles  that  I  had  seen  in  the  course  of  all  my  travels." 

''Feb.  11th.  —  Called  on  Prince  Corsini,  Colonel  Caldwell,  Lord 
Ossulston,  then  to  the  Corso  again,  to  join  in  the  fun  of  the 
Carnival,  streets  more  crowded  than  ever  with  carriages  and 
masquers,  the  English  everywhere  and  always  the  most  uproar- 
ious. If  there  be  any  excess  of  boisterousness  visible,  it  is  ten 
to  one  that  it  proceeds  from  the  English  or  other  foreigners.  The 
Italians  do  little  more  than  exchange  bouquets  or  little  bons-bons 
in  a  very  quiet  graceful  way,  throM^ing  them  to  each  other  from 
their  carriages  or  balconies,  but  the  English  shovel  upon  each  other 
the  chalk  confettis,  with  all  the  zeal  and  energy  of  navigators.  It 
is  quite  certain  that  a  carnival  in  England  would  not  pass  over  so 
peaceably  as  here ;  people  would  begin  with  sugar  plums,  and  go 
on  to  apples  and  oranges,  then  proceed  to  potatoes,  and  end  prob- 
ably with  stones." 

"  Borne,  February  12t7i. —  Called  on  Mr.  Hemans,  son  of  the 
poetess,  who  is  editing  the  Roman  Advertiser,  an  English  weekly 
paper,  and  gave  him  a  copy  of  my  speech.  Then  accompanied 
Prince  Canino  in  an  open  carriage  to  see  the  foxhounds  throw  off 
in  the  Campagna,  beyond  the  tomb  of  Caecilia  Metella;  the 
hounds  drew  the  ruins  of  aqueducts  and  tombs,  under  the  direc- 
tion of  '  Dick '  and  '  George,'  the  whippers-in,  in  regular  Melton 
style,  but  not  finding,  they  proceeded  across  the  Campagna  to  a 
wood  at  a  distance.  The  Prince  followed  the  field  in  his  drag, 
leaving  the  road,  and  going  across  the  country,  just  as  we  should 
have  done  in  an  American  prairie.  We  soon  found  ourselves 
upon  a  trackless  waste,  with  no  other  habitations  than  here  and 
there  a  wigwam,  for  the  temporary  accommodation  of  the  shep- 
herds during  the  winter  months,  the  only  part  of  the  year  when 
man  or  beast  can  exist  in  this  region.     The  Marquis  d'Azeglio 


iET.43.]  TOUR   OVER  EUROPE.  289 

called  on  me  on  his  arrival  from  Genoa.  We  had  a  long  chat 
upon  the  prospects  of  Italy ;  his  political  views  appeared  to  me 
sound  and  rational,  and  he  is  evidently  under  the  influence  of 
patriotic  feelings.  There  is  always  hope  for  a  country  that  pro- 
duces such  men. 

"  In  the  evening  to  the  American  Consul's,  and  found  a  number 
of  his  countrymen  and  women  in  masquerade  dresses,  everything 
about  them  lively  excepting  the  spirits  of  the  actors.  Introduced 
to  several  of  '  our  most  distinguished  citizens/  —  a  title  for  a 
bore." 

"February  13th.  —  Dined  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  S.  Gurney,  met 
young  Bunsens,  and  some  other  Germans,  the  Prussian  Minister, 
etc.  Speaking  to  the  latter  about  his  being  almost  the  only 
Protestant  representative  at  the  court  of  the  Pope,  he  said  that 
Peel  had  applied  to  the  Prussian  Government  to  know  whether 
it  found  it  advantageous  or  otherwise  to  have  a  diplomatic  con- 
nection with  the  Holy  See,  and  that  the  answer  given  was,  that 
the  disadvantages  rather  predominated,  and  that  if  that  Govern- 
ment stood  in  the  position  of  England,  it  would  prefer  to  remain 
without  diplomatic  relations  with  Eome.  Next  to  Prince  Canine's 
soiree,  very  mixed,  but  very  agreeable,  and  many  intelligent  men 
there.  Was  introduced  to  the  Count  of  Syracuse,  brother  of  the 
King  of  Naples,  with  whom  I  had  a  long  talk  about  Ireland, 
France,  and  other  matters.  Found  him,  for  a  king's  brother,  a 
very  clear-headed,  well-informed  man.  Talked  with  the  Sardinian 
Minister  about  Turkey,  where  he  had  been  ambassador  for  eight 
years.  The  Marquis  Dragonetti,  an  able  man.  Was  introduced 
to  several  others  of  note." 

"  February  14:th.  —  They  who  argue  that  the  working  people 
are  elevated  in  intellect  and  prompted  to  habits  of  cleanliness  and 
self-respect  by  having  free  access  to  public  buildings  devoted  to 
the  arts,  must  not  quote  the  ragged,  dirty  crowds  who  frequent 
St.  Peter's  to  kiss  the  toe  of  the  statue  of  the  saint ! " 

"Feb.  16th. — The  statue  of  Moses  by  Michael  Angelo  in  the 
Church  of  San  Pietro  in  Vincoli,  did  not  impress  me  on  looking 
at  it  as  I  expected.  The  execution  may  be  all  that  the  sculptor 
desires,  but  to  my  eye  the  face  wants  both  dignity  and  honesty 
of  expression,  and  the  head  fails  to  impress  me  with  the  idea  of 
wisdom  or  capacity  in  the  great  lawgiver." 

"Feb.  19th.  —  To  the  Barberini  Palace  to  see  a  very  small  col- 
lection of  paintings,  one  of  them  the  far-famed  Beatrice  Cenci  by 
Guido.  The  touching  pensiveness  of  the  face  produces  such  an 
impression  that  it  will  be  present  in  one's  recollection  when  per- 
haps every  other  picture  in  Eome  is  forgotten. 

"  In  the  evening  took  tea  with  Mrs.  Jameson,  authoress  of 
works  on  early  painters,  an  agreeable  woman,  whose  good-nature 

19 


290  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1847. 

and  sense  prevent  her  from  displaying  the  unpleasant  qualities  of 
too  many  literary  ladies.  Met  Mr.  Gibson  the  sculptor,  who 
talked  about  robbers  and  assassins,  with  a  graphic  description  of 
them  and  their  victims,  which  was  quite  professional." 

"  Feh.  22d.  —  Went  with  Mrs.  Jameson  to  the  Vatican,  walked 
through  the  sculpture  galleries.  The  Braccio  Nuovo  contains  a 
statue  of  Demosthenes  in  an  attitude  most  earnest ;  there  is  no 
appearance  of  effort  or  art  in  the  figure,  and  yet  it  is  endowed 
with  the  earnest  and  sincere  expression  which  an  actor  would 
seek  to  imitate.  The  countenance  expresses  a  total  forgetfulness 
of  self  and  everything  but  the  subject  on  which  the  mind  of  the 
orator  is  intent.  The  sculptor  has  not  only  succeeded  in  making 
his  marble  convey  the  idea  of  sincerity,  but  it  almost  makes  you 
think  it  feels  sincere.  The  whole  art  of  the  work  lies  in  this 
impress  of  earnestness,  and  it  proves  that  the  artist  knew  where 
the  secret  of  oratory  lies,  and  I  can  fancy  that  Demosthenes  him- 
self might  have  been  the  instructor  of  the  sculptor  on  this  point. 
The  full-length  statue  of  the  Eoman  lady  in  the  same  gallery  is 
dignified,  chaste,  and  graceful. 

"  Walked  with  Mrs.  Jameson  into  the  Sistine  Chapel,  to  see 
Michael  Angelo's  frescos ;  the  Last  Judgment  at  one  end,  and 
the  whole  of  the  ceiling  from  his  pencil.  It  is  a  deplorable  mis- 
application of  the  time  and  talent  of  a  man  of  genius  to  devote 
years  to  the  painting  of  the  ceiling  of  a  chapel,  at  which  one  can 
only  look  by  an  effort  that  costs  too  much  inconvenience  to  the 
neck  to  leave  the  mind  at  ease  to  enjoy  the  pleasure  of  the  paint- 
ing  With  all  the  enthusiasm  of  my  fair  companion,  I  could 

not  feel  much  gratification  at  this  celebrated  work  of  art. 

"At  seven  o'clock  was  presented  to  the  Pope  in  his  private 
cabinet,  where  I  found  him  in  a  white  flannel  friar's  dress,  sitting 
at  a  small  writing-desk  surrounded  with  papers.  The  approach 
to  this  little  room  was  through  several  lofty  and  spacious  apart- 
ments. The  curtained  doors  and  the  long  flowing  robes  of  the 
attendants  reminded  me,  oddly  enough,  of  my  interview  with 
Mehemet  Ali  at  Cairo.  Pius  IX.  received  me  with  a  hearty  and 
unaffected  expression  of  pleasure  at  meeting  one  who  had  been 
concerned  in  a  great  and  good  work  in  England ;  commended  my 
perseverance  and  the  means  by  which  the  principle  of  Free  Trade 
had  been  made  to  triumph ;  and  he  remarked  that  England  was 
the  only  country  where  such  triumphs  were  achieved  by  years  of 
legal  and  moral  exertion.  He  professed  himself  to  be  favorable 
to  Free  Trade,  and  said  all  he  could  do  should  be  done  to  forward 
it,  but  modestly  added  that  he  could  do  but  little.  I  pointed  to 
Tuscany,  his  next  neighbor,  as  a  good  example  to  follow,  and  said 
that  England  had  not  been  ashamed  to  take  a  lesson  from  that 
country  j  and  I  added  that  Tuscany  was  an  inconvenient  neighbor, 


^T.43.]  TOUR  OVER  EUROPE.  291 

owing  to  the  smuggling  which  would  be  carried  on  until  his  tariff 
was  put  upon  the  same  moderate  scale.  He  spoke  of  the  wide 
frontier  of  his  territories  as  being  favorable  to  the  contraband 
trade,  and  alluded  to  the  desirableness  of  a  custom-house  union 
in  Italy.  In  parting,  I  called  his  attention  to  the  practice  in 
Spain  of  having  bull-fights  in  honor  of  the  saints  and  virgins  on 
the  fete  days,  and  gave  him  an  extract  from  a  Madrid  paper, 
giving  an  account  of  a  bull-fight  there  in  honor  of  its  patroness 
the  Virgin.  After  a  little  conversation  upon  the  cruelty  and 
demoralization  of  these  spectacles,  he  thanked  me  for  having 
drawn  his  attention  to  it,  and  promised  to  give  instructions  upon 
the  subject  to  an  envoy  whom  he  was  about  to  send  to  Spain. 
He  concluded  by  another  complimentary  phrase  or  two,  and  we 
left.  I  was  impressed  with  the  notion  that  he  is  sincere,  kind- 
hearted,  and  good,  and  that  he  is  possessed  of  strong  common 
sense  and  sound  understanding.  He  did  not  strike  me  as  a  man 
of  commanding  genius." 

"Feb.  23d  —  Dined  with  Count  Rossi,  the  French  Ambassador. 
A  splendid  banquet,  at  which  the  foreign  ambassadors  in  Rome, 
including  the  Turkish  envoy  going  to  Vienna,  were  present. 
Looking  round  the  table  I  saw  represented,  Italy,  France,  Ger- 
many, Russia,  England,  Turkey,  and  Syria,  the  latter  by  a  bishop 
of  the  Maronites." 

"  Feb.  24:th.  —  We  have  been  in  Rome  a  month,  have  seen  some 
of  the  wonders  of  the  ancients,  and  have  been  overw^helmed  with 
the  kindness  of  friends,  but  I  long  for  a  quiet  day  or  two  in 
travelling  over  the  Campagna,  where  the  sheep  will  be  the  only 
living  objects  that  will  surround  us.  I  came  here  expecting 
repose,  and  have  found  excitement,  crowded  evening  parties,  and 
late  hours.  At  eleven  o'clock  at  nicrht  Doctor  Masi  called  aofain, 
bringing  me  sundry  packets  of  his  newspaper,  the  Contcmporaneo, 
which  he  desires  to  transmit  by  me  to  Naples,  thus  making  me  a 
kind  of  moral  smuggler." 

"  Naples,  Feb.  27th.  —  Left  Rome  Thursday  morning,  25th  Feb- 
ruary, at  half-past  eight,  for  Naples,  by  the  new  Appian  AVay, 
which  leaves  the  old  road  of  that  name  a  little  to  the  right  on 
quitting  the  city,  but  falls  into  it  a  few  miles  off.  The  course  of 
this  celebrated  old  road  may  be  distinctly  traced  at  a  distance  by 
the  mounds  and  ruins  of  tombs  and  temples  with  which  its  sides 
are  fringed.  Snow  fell  as  we  passed  out  of  Rome.  The  view  of 
the  Campagna,  with  the  ruined  aqueducts  stretching  across  its 
desolate  surface,  presented  a  striking  contrast  to  the  luxurious 
and  busy  scene  which  we  had  but  a  few  minutes  before  taken 
leave  of  within  the  city  walls.  These  stately  and  graceful  aque- 
ducts are  nearly  the  only  ruins  which  excite  feelings  of  regret,  be- 
ing perhaps  the  sole  buildings  which  did  not  merit  destruction  by 


292  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1847. 

the  crimes,  the  folly,  and  the  injustice  which  attended  their  con- 
struction, or  the  purposes  to  which  they  were  devoted. 

"  We  are  now  in  the  territory  of  the  king  of  the  Two  Sicilies, 
who  can  certainly  boast  of  ruling  over  more  beggars  than  any 
other  sovereign.  Mendicancy  seems  to  be  the  profession  of  all 
the  laboring  people  whenever  they  have  an  opportunity  of  prac- 
tising it.  .  No  sooner  is  a  traveller's  carriage  seen  than  young  and 
old  pounce  upon  it ;  the  peasant  woman  throws  down  her  load 
that  slie  may  keep  up  with  the  vehicle,  bawling  out  incessantly 
for  charity ;  the  boy  who  is  watching  the  sheep,  a  field  or  two  off, 
hurries  across  hedge  and  ditch  to  intercept  you  as  you  go  up  the 
hill ;  and  when  the  carriage  stops  to  change  horses,  it  is  surrounded 
by  lame,  halt,  and  blind,  scrambling  and  screaming  for  alms.  The 
rags  and  misery  remind  me  of  Ireland.  The  only  persons  I  see 
m  the  small  towns  and  villages  with  clean  sleek  skins  and  good 
clothes  on  their  backs  are  priests  and  soldiers." 

"  March  Uh.  —  Went  with  M.  d'Azala  to  the  Museum,  first  to 
see  the  room  containing  jewelry  and  ornaments,  but  did  not  think 
them  generally  in  such  good  taste  or  so  well  executed  as  those  I 
had  seen  in  Campana's  collection  of  Etruscan  works  of  a  similar 
kind  in  Eome.  Next  to  the  rooms  containing  the  articles  in 
bronze,  brought  principally  from  Pompeii.  Here  1  found  speci- 
mens of  all  the  common  household  utensils  —  lamps,  jugs,  pans, 
moulds  for  pastry,  some  of  them  in  the  form  of  shells,  others  of 
animals ;  scales  and  steelyards,  mirrors,  bells,  articles  for  the  toi- 
let, including  rouge  ;  bread  in  loaves,  with  the  name  of  the  maker 
stamped  on  them,  surgical  instruments,  cupping  cups  in  bronze, 
locks,  key,  hinges,  tickets  for  the  theatre;  in  fact,  I  was  introduced 

to  the  mode  of  domestic  every-day  life  amongst  the  ancients 

After  seeing  this  portion  of  the  Museum  I  came  away  without 
proceeding  farther,  preferring  to  mix  up  no  other  objects  with  my 
enjoyment  to-day  of  certainly  the  most  novel  and  interesting  col- 
lection of  curiosities  I  ever  beheld." 

"  Najjhs,  March  6th.  —  At  eleven  o'clock  went  with  Mr.  Close  to 
the  palace  to  see  the  king  by  appointment^,  conversed  for  a  short 
time  with  him  upon  Free  Trade,  about  which  he  did  not  appear  to 
be  altogether  ignorant  or  without  some  favorable  sympathies.  He 
questioned  me  about  the  future  solution  of  the  Irish  difficulty,  a 
question  which  seems  to  be  uppermost  in  the  minds  of  all  states- 
men and  public  men  on  the  continent.  The  king  is  a  stout  and 
tall  man,  heavy  looking,  and  of  restricted  capacity.  I  am  told  he 
is  amiable  and  correct  in  his  domestic  life,  excessively  devout  and 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  his  confessor,  of  whom  report  does  not 
speak  favorably." 

"March  16th.  —  T  went  to  the  Museum  to  see  the  collection  of 
bronzes  again  whilst  the  houses  from  which  they  were  taken  in 


iET.43.]  TOUR  OVER  EUROPE.  293 

Pompeii  were  fresh  in  my  memory.  I  was  introduced  to  the 
members  of  the  Academy  of  Science,  who  were  holding  an  ordi- 
nary meeting  in  their  room  in  the  same  building.  A  compli- 
mentary address  to  me  was  delivered  by  Sig.  Mancini,  and 
responded  to  by  other  members,  and  I  thanked  them  briefly  in 
French." 

"  Turin,  May  26,  1847.  —  Had  an  interview  with  his  Majesty 
Charles  Albert,  a  very  tall  and  dignified  figure,  with  a  sombre,  but 
not  unamiable  expression  of  countenance ;  received  me  frankly ; 
talked  of  railroads,  machinery,  agriculture,  and  similar  practical 
questions.  Said  he  hoped  I  was  contented  with  what  his  Govern- 
ment had  done  in  the  application  of  my  principles,  and  informed 
me  that  his  ministr}^  had  resolved  upon  a  further  reduction  of 
duties  on  iron,  cotton,  &c. ,  He  is  said  to  have  good  intentions, 
but  to  want  firmness  of  character. 

"  In  the  evening,  Count  Eevel,  minister  of  finance,  came  in, 
with  whom  I  had  a  long  discussion  upon  Free  Trade,  a  sensible 
man.  Speaking  to  Signor  Cibrario  upon  the  subject  of  the  com- 
merce of  the  middle  ages  in  Italy,  he  said  that  the  principle  of 
protection  or  Colbertism  was  unknown ;  that,  however,  there  were 
innumerable  impediments  to  industry  and  internal  commerce,  ow- 
ing to  the  corporations  of  trades  and  the  custom-houses  which  sur- 
rounded every  little  state  and  almost  every  little  city." 

"May  28,  1847.  —  Went  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  hear 
a  lecture  by  Signor  Scialoja,  Professor  of  Political  Economy  at  the 
University,  a  Neapolitan  of  considerable  talent,  who  delivered  his 
address  with  much  eloquence,  extempore  with  the  aid  of  notes. 
In  the  course  of  his  lecture  he  alluded  in  flattering  terms  to  my 
presence,  which  elicited  applause  from  a  crowded  auditory,  com- 
prising, in  addition  to  the  students,  numerous  visitors,  officers 
in  the  army,  clergymen,  advocates,  &c.  On  my  leaving  the  hall 
at  the  close  I  was  cheered  by  a  crowd  of  students  in  the  Court. 
Count  Petitti  and  the  Count  Cavour  took  breakfast  with  me." 

"Milan,  June  ?>.  — Attended  a  meeting  of  La  Societa  d'lncor- 
raggiamento  of  Milan.  About  200  persons  were  present,  consist- 
ing of  members  and  their  friends.  A  paper  was  read  by  Signor 
G.  Sacchi  upon  the  doctrine  of  Eomagnosi  (a  Milanese  writer)  on 
free  trade,  in  which  he  alluded  in  complimentary  terms  to  my 
presence.  Then  Signor  A.  Mauri  (the  secretary)  read  an  eulo- 
gistic address  to  me.  After  which  Chevalier  Malfei  read  a  paper 
■upon  Milton,  with  a  long  translation  from  the  first  book  of  '  Para- 
dise Lost.'  In  conclusion  I  delivered  a  short  address  in  French, 
thanking  the  Society  and  recommending  the  study  of  political 
economy  to  the  young  men  present.  The  meeting  terminated 
with  enthusiastic  expressions  of  satisfaction.  In  the  evening  was 
entertained  at  a  public  dinner  (the  first  ever  held  in  Milan)  by 


294  LIFE  or   COBDEN.  [1847. 

about  eighty  persons,  including  most  of  the  leading  literary  men 
of  the  place,  Signor  G.  Basevi,  advocate,  in  the  chair.  This  gen- 
tleman, who  I  was  told  is  of  the  Jewish  persuasion,  had  the  moral 
courage  to  act  as  counsel  in  defence  of  Hofer  the  Tyrolese  leader, 
when  he  was  tried  by  a  military  commission  at  Mantua  and  sen- 
tenced to  be  shot.  Not  having  before  taken  part  in  a  similar 
demonstration,  he  was  unacquainted  wdth  the  mode  of  conducting 
a  meeting.  He  began  the  toasts  in  the  midst  of  the  dinner,  by 
proposing  my  health  in  an  eloquent  speech.  Then  followed  three 
or  four  others  who  all  proposed  my  health.  Before  the  dinner  was 
concluded,  other  orators,  who  had  become  a  little  heated  with 
wine,  wished  to  speak.  One  of  them  broke  through  the  rule  laid 
down,  and  almost  entered  upon  the  forbidden  ground  of  Austrian 
politics.  However,  by  dint  of  management  and  entreaty  the  ex- 
cited spirits  were  calmed,  and  the  banquet  went  off  pretty  welL 
Eeceived  an  anonymous  letter  entreating  me  not  to  propose  the 
health  of  the  Emperor  of  Austria." 

"  Lake  Como,  June  7.  —  Lounged  away  the  morning  over  Mad- 
ame d'Arblay's  Memoirs,  and  Lady  C.  Bury's  George  IV.  Heard 
also  some  gossip  about  the  residents  on  the  shores  of  the  lake, 
not  the  most  favorable  to  their  morality.  After  dinner  made  an 
excursion  to  the  town  of  Como  and  saw  the  Cathedral." 

"  Besenzaiio,  June  9.  —  Found  Signor  Salevi  an  intelligent  and 
amiable  man,  his  head  and  countenance  striking ;  is  writing  a 
book  upon  prison  reform,  and  a  great  promoter  of  infant  schools, 
of  which  he  says  there  are  three  well  conducted  in  Brescia,  and 
supported  by  voluntary  contributions.  Speaking  about  the  pro- 
prietorship of  land,  which  is  in  this  neighborhood  very  mucli 
divided,  he  expressed  his  surprise  that  England,  so  greatly  in 
advance  of  Europe  in  other  respects,  should  still  preserve  so 
much  of  the  feudal  system  in  respect  to  the  law  of  real  property. 
He  thinks  the  law  of  succession,  as  established  in  the  Code  Na- 
poleon, highly  favorable  to  the  mass  of  tlie  people;  that  nothing 
gives  dignity  to  a  man,  and  develops  his  self-respect  so  effectually, 
as  the  ownership  of  property,  however  small.  In  Lombardy,  as 
in  Piedmont,  one  half  tlie  property  is  at  the  disposal  of  a  fatlier 
on  his  decease ;  the  remainder  is  by  law  given  equally  amongst 
his  children.  I  find  everywhere  on  the  continent,  amongst  all 
classes,  the  same  unfavorable  opinion  of  our  law  of  primogeniture 
in  England." 

"  Venice,  June  21.  —  In  the  evening  dined  at  a  public  enter- 
tainment at  the  island  of  Giudecca,  under  an  alcove  of  vines ;  the 
party  consisted  of  about  seventy  persons.  Count  Priuli  in  the 
chair,  the  podesta  or  mayor  by  his  side,  the  French  and  American 
consuls  being  present.  At  the  close  of  the  sumptuous  repast,  the 
chairman  called  upon  Dr.  Locatelli  to  propose  my  health  in  be- 


iEr.43.]  TOUR  OVER  EUROPE.  295 

half  of  the  meeting,  and  he  read  a  short  and  eloquent  speech,  to 
which  I  replied  in  French.  It  had  been  arranged  that  no  other 
speeches  should  be  made.  M.  Chalaye,  a  French  gentleman  who 
was  in  China  representing  the  French  Government  during  our 
late  war  there,  and  who  is  now  appointed  Consul  to  Peru,  made  a 
strong  appeal  privately  to  the  chairman,  to  be  allowed  to  make  a 
speech,  but  without  success.  We  left  the  table,  and  after  taking 
coffee,  the  party  entered  their  gondolas,  which  were  waiting,  and 
accompanied  by  the  excellent  band  of  music  belonging  to  an 
Austrian  regiment,  which  had  played  during  the  dinner,  we  pro- 
ceeded in  procession  down  the  grand  canal  to  the  Eialto  bridge. 
The  music  and  the  gay  liveries  of  some  of  our  boatmen  soon 
attracted  a  great  number  of  gondolas ;  the  sound  and  sight  also 
brought  everybody  into  their  balconies  ;  as  we  returned  tlie  moon, 
which  had  risen,  gave  a  fresh  charm  to  the  picturesque  scene, 
which  was  sufficiently  romantic  to  excite  poetical  emotions  even 
in  the  mind  of  a  political  economist." 

"  Trieste,  June  26th.  —  Left  Venice  this  morning  at  six  o'clock  in 
the  Austrian  Lloyd's  steamboat,  a  handsome,  large,  and  clean  vessel. 
It  was  low  water,  and  as  we  came  out  of  the  port,  through  the 
tortuous  channel  which  winds  amongst  the  islands,  it  afforded  a 
good  view  of  the  advantages  which  the  Queen  of  the  Adriatic 
possessed  behind  these  intricate  barriers.  The  view  of  the  city 
at  a  few  miles'  distance,  with  its  palaces,  towers,  and  domes, 
rising  from  the  level  of  the  water,  and  its  low  country  at  tlie  back 
shut  in  by  high  mountains,  is  very  magnificent.  Eeached  Trieste 
at  two  o'clock.  The  coast  hilly,  and  the  town  stands  upon  a 
confined  spot  shut  in  by  the  high  land,  which  rises  immediately  at 
the  back.  The  ships  lie  in  an  open  roadstead,  and  are  exposed  to 
certain  winds.  The  number  of  square-rigged  vessels  and  the 
activity  in  the  port  offer  a  contrast  to  the  scene  at  Venice." 

"  Trieste,  Jul//  1st.  —  Dined  at  a  public  dinner  given  to  me  by 
about  ninety  of  the  principal  merchants  in  the  saloon  of  the 
theatre.  M.  Schlapfer,  President  of  the  Exchange  Committee,  in 
the  chair.  The  speeches  were  delivered  in  the  midst  of  the  din- 
ner. M.  de  Bruck,  the  projector  and  chief  director  of  Austrian 
Lloyd's,  spoke  well.  Signor  dell'  Ongaro,  who  is  an  Italian  and 
a  poet,  read  a  speech,  in  which  he  made  allusion  to  Italian  nation- 
ality, which  drew  forth  some  hasty  remarks  from  M.  de  Bruck, 
and  led  to  a  scene  of  some  excitement.  After  dinner  I  persuaded 
them  to  shake  hands.  In  speaking  to  the  chairman  during  the 
dinner,  he  described  the  iron-masters  in  Styria  as  not  having  in  a 
series  of  years  realized  much  money,  notwithstanding  their  being 
protected  by  heavy  duties.  Many  of  the  nobility  are  interested 
in  tliese  furnaces ;  their  businesses  badly  managed.  He  gives  a 
still  worse  description  of  the  cotton  spinners  and  manufacturers, 


296  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1847. 

who  cling  to  the  ways  of  their  fathers,  and  do  not  improve  their 
machinery,  being  very  inferior  to  the  Swiss ;  does  not  know  of  an 
instance  of  one  of  them  retiring  from  business  with  a  fortune, 
and  few  of  them  are  rich  in  floating  capital.  A  good  band  of  an 
Austrian  regiment  performed  during  the  dinner." 

"  Vienna,  July  7th.  —  Looked  in  to  see  the  famous  monumental 
tomb  by  Canova,  an  original  and  successful  design.  I  think,  how- 
ever, this  sculptor  lived  to  enjoy  the  best  of  his  fame,  and  that 
posterity  will  hardly  preserve  the  warmth  of  enthusiasm  for  his 
genius  that  was  felt  by  the  generation  in  which  he  lived." 

"  Vienna,  July  10th.  —  Paid  a  visit  in  company  with  M.  de 
H.  to  Prince  Metternich,  whose  appearance  hardly  denotes  the 
veteran  of  seventy-five.  His  head  and  countenance  convey  the 
impression  of  high  polish  rather  than  native  force  of  character, 
and  his  conversation  is  more  subtle  than  profound.  He  talks 
incessantly,  perhaps  in  order  to  choose  his  own  topics ;  the  state 
of  Italy  was  his  principal  theme,  and  he  professed  to  be  appre- 
hensive of  violent  disorders  in  that  country.  He  entered  into  a 
long  essay  upon  differences  of  race,  and  the  antagonisms  of  nation- 
ality in  Europe.  '  Why  did  Italy  still  have  favorable  feelings  to- 
wards France,  notwithstanding  the  injuries  she  had  received  from 
the  latter  country  ?  Because  the  two  nations  were  of  the  same 
race.  Why  were  England  and  France  so  inveterately  opposed  ? 
Because  upon  their  opposite  coasts  the  Teutonic  and  Latin  races 
came  into  close  contact  ? '  Again  and  again  he  returned  to  the 
state  of  Italy,  spoke  of  their  jealousies  and  hatreds,  one  town  of 
another;  said  that  a  man  in  Milan  would  not  lend  his  money 
upon  mortgage  in  Cremona  or  Padua,  because  '  he  could  not  see 
the  church  steeple.'  It  struck  me  that  his  hatred  of  the  Italians 
partook  of  the  feeling  described  by  Eochefoucauld  when  he  says 
that  we  never  forgive  those  whom  we  have  injured.  Speaking  of 
Austria,  he  dilated  upon  the  great  diversity  of  the  character  and 
condition  of  the  people,  and  seemed  to  be  vindicating  his  con- 
servative policy.  '  How  could  they  have  a  representative  system, 
when  men  from  different  parts  of  the  empire,  if  assembled  as  rep- 
resentatives in  the  capital,  could  not  understand  each  other  ? 
The  Emperor  was  King  of  Hungary,  of  Lombardy,  and  of  Bohemia, 
Count  of  Tyrol,  and  Archduke  of  Austria.'  He  alluded  to  the 
generally  comfortable  state  of  the  people,  and  wished  me  to  ex- 
amine into  their  condition.  He  seemed  to  speak  on  the  defensive, 
like  a  man  conscious  that  public  opinion  in  Europe  was  not  favor- 
able to  his  policy ;  he  threw  in  parenthetically,  and  with  a  deli- 
cate finesse,  some  compliments,  such  as  '  I  wish  I  was  an  English- 
man.' '  I  speak  like  yourself,  as  a  practical  man,  and  not  in  the 
language  of  romance.'  '  You  and  I  are  of  the  same  race,'  &c.  He 
alluded  to  Ireland,  and  said  he  could  not  discover  a  key  for  the 


^T.43.]  TOUR   OVER  EUROPE.  297 

solution  of  the  difficulty :  in  other  countries  reforms  were  wanted, 
but  there  a  social  system  must  be  created  out  of  chaos.  He  is 
probably  the  last  of  those  state  physicians  who,  looking  only  to 
the  symptoms  of  a  nation,  content  themselves  with  superficial 
remedies  from  day  to  day,  and  never  attempt  to  probe  beneath 
the  surface,  to  discover  the  source  of  the  evils  which  afflict  the 
social  system.  This  order  of  statesmen  will  pass  away  with  him, 
because  too  much  light  has  been  shed  upon  the  laboratory  of 
governments,  to  allow  them  to  impose  upon  mankind  with  the 
old  formulas. 

"  After  leaving  Prince  Metternich,  I  called  upon  Baron  Kubeck, 
minister  of  finance,  a  man  of  a  totally  different  character  from  his 
chief.  He  is  a  simple,  sincere,  and  straightforward  man;  expressed 
himself  favorably  to  a  relaxation  of  the  protective  system,  but 
spoke  of  the  difficulties  which  powerful  interests  put  in  liis  way ; 
said  that  Dr.  List  had  succeeded  in  misleading  tlie  public  mind 
on  the  question  of  protection.  A  visit  from  Prince  Esterhazy, 
who  was  upwards  of  twenty  years  ambassador  in  England ;  he 
remarked  that  diplomacy  upon  the  old  system  was  now  mere 
humbug,  for  that  the  world  was  much  too  well  informed  upon  all 
that  was  going  on  in  every  country  to  allow  ambassadors  to  mys- 
tify matters." 

"  Dresden,  July  21st: —  Called  on  M.  Zeschau,  the  Saxon  finance 
minister,  an  able  hard-working  man,  who  also  fills  the  office  of 
minister  for  foreign  affairs  ;  tells  me  the  land  is  much  divided  in 
Saxony,  that  the  owner  of  an  estate  worth  60,000/.  is  deemed  a 
large  proprietor ;  the  majority  of  the  farmers  cultivate  their  own 
land ;  in  some  of  the  hilly  districts  the  weavers  rent  a  small  patch 
of  ground  for  garden  or  potatoes  ;  the  feudal  service,  or  corvee, 
has  been  abolished  in  Saxony  since  1833,  having  been  commuted 
into  fixed  payments,  which  will  be  redeemed  gradually  in  ,a  few 
years.  He  spoke  of  Ireland,  and  said  he  would  dispose  of  the 
uncultivated  land  in  the  same  way  as  they  do  in  Saxony  of  the 
mines  of  coal,  &c.  If  after  a  certain  fixed  period  the  proprietor 
of  the  land  will  not  work  them,  they  are  let  by  the  government 
to  other  parties,  subject  to  the  payment  of  a  rent  to  the  owner, 
according  to  the  produce  raised." 

*'  Dresden,  July  22d.  —  Went  with  M.  Krug  to  see  the  collection 
of  jewels,  and  articles  of  carving,  sculpture,  &c.  in  the  green  vaults. 
Then  to  the  royal  library,  and  made  the  acquaintance  of  M.  Eal- 
kenstein,  the  chief  librarian,  a  learned  and  interesting  man,  who 
showed  us  a  manuscript  work  by  Luther,  and  some  other  curiosi- 
ties. M.  Falkenstein  is  acquainted  with  Hebrew,  Greek,  and 
Latin  critically,  is  also  learned  in  the  Arabic,  Persian,  and  Scla- 
vonic languages,  speaks  French,  German,  English,  Italian,  &c. ;  his 
salary,  as  head  librarian,  having  no  one  over  him,  is  150/.,  and  he 


298  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1847. 

has  a  wife  and  six  children  !  Speaking  of  Luther's  coarseness,  he 
said  that  there  are  some  of  his  letters  in  the  library  so  grossly 
violent  and  abusive  that  they  are  unlit  to  be  read  in  the  presence 
of  women.  M.  Falkenstein  is  the  author  of  a  life  of  Kosciusko, 
the  Polish  patriot,  whom  he  knew  when  he  was  a  boy  at  Soleure, 
in  Switzerland,  where  the  old  warrior  died.  He  described  him  as 
very  amiable  and  charitable ;  he  was  accustomed  to  ride  an  old 
horse  who  was  so  used  to  the  habit  of  his  master  of  giving  alms 
to  beggars,  that  he  would  stop  instinctively  when  he  came  near 

to  a  man  in  rags Saw  in  a  shop  window  to-day  a  silk 

handkerchief  for  sale,  with  my  portrait  engraved  and  my  name 
attached." 

"Berlin,  July  2Sth.  —  Went  to  Babelsberg,  near  Potsdam,  at 
five  in  the  afternoon,  to  visit  the  Prince  of  Prussia,  the  king's 
brother  and  heir  presumptive  to  the  throne.^  A  little  before 
seven  I  found  the  prince  and  princess  and  their  attendants  in  the 
garden.  He  is  a  straightforward,  soldier-like  man,  she  a  clever 
woman,  speaking  English  well.  A  school  for  the  officers'  sons 
had  been  invited  to  visit  the  grounds ;  the  youths,  dressed  in  a 
military  costume,  were  inspected  by  the  prince,  and  afterwards 
the  princess  walked  along  the  lines  and  accosted  some  of  the  boys 
in  tlie  front  rank.  Then  some  large  balls  were  produced,  and  the 
princess  began  the  fun  by  throwing  them  amongst  the  lads,  who 
scrambled  for  them ;  the  prince  joined  in  the  amusement,  and 
they  pelted  each  other  with  great  glee.  The  king  soon  after- 
wards arrived  from  his  palace  at  Sans  Souci,  and  went  familiarly 
amongst  the  scholars,  who  were  afterwards  entertained  at  a  long 
table  with  cakes,  chocolate,  &c.  The  rest  of  us  then  sat  down  to 
tea  at  a  couple  of  tables  under  the  trees,  the  princess  presiding 
and  pouring  out  the  tea,  the  king  and  the  rest  partaking  unosten- 
tatiously, everybody  seated,  and  with  hats  and  caps  on.  The  king 
speaks  English  well,  is  highly  educated,  said  to  be  clever,  but  im- 
pulsive, and  not  practical.  He  is  fifty-two,  with  a  portly  figure, 
and  a  thoroughly  good-natured  unaffected  German  face. 

"  Met  Baron  von  Humboldt,  a  still  sturdy  little  man,  with  a 
clear  gray  eye,  born  in  1769,  and  in  his  seventy-eighth  year;  tells 
me  he  allows  himself  only  four  to  five  hours'  sleep.  He  has  a 
fine  massive  forehead,  his  manners  are  courtier-like,  he  lives  in 
the  palace  of  Sans  Souci,  near  the  king.  He  spoke  highly  of  Jef- 
ferson, whom  he  knew  intimately ;  remarked  of  Lord  Brougham 
that,  like  Kaphael,  he  had  three  manners,  and  that  he  had  known 
him  in  his  earliest  and  best  manner.  At  dusk  we  entered  the 
chateau,  sat  down  at  a  large  round  table,  and  were  served  with 
a  plain  supper ;  were  afterwards  conveyed  to  the  railway-station 
in  a  carriage,  and  reached  Berlin  at  eleven  o'clock." 

1  The  present  Emperor  of  Germany. 


JEt.43.]  tour  over  EUROPE.  299 

"  Berlin,  Jidy  2^th.  —  Went  with  Mr.  Howard  to  call  upon  Dr. 
Eiclihorn,  at  present  Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  but  formerly 
in  the  department  of  trade,  and  who  took  an  active  part  in  the 
formation  of  the  Zollverein,  an  able  and  enthusiastic  man  ;  he 
stated  that  the  originators  of  the  customs-union  did  not  contem- 
plate the  establishment  of  a  protective  system  ;  on  the  contrary,  it 
was  distinctly  laid  down  that  the  duties  on  foreign  goods  should 
not  as  a  rule  exceed  ten  per  cent.  To  tlie  opera  in  the  evening, 
and  was  introduced  to  M.  Nothomb,  the  Belgian  minister,  a  clever, 
ready  man.  M.  Nothomb  thinks  the  Corn  Laws  of  Belgium  will 
soon  be  abolished,  and  says,  after  the  late  calamities,  arising  from 
the  scarcity  of  food,  all  Europe  ought  to  unite  in  abolisliing  for- 
ever every  restriction  on  the  corn  trade ;  he  thinks  the  next  min- 
istry in  Belgium,  although  its  head  will  probably  be  an  ardent 
Free  Trader,  will  be  obliged  to  advance  still  further  in  the  path  of 
restriction;  that  the  majority  of  the  chambers  is  monopolist.  'An 
absolute  government  may  re'present  an  idea,  hut  elective  legislatures 
represent  interests!  The  enlightened  ministers  of  Prussia  are  over- 
ruled by  the  clamors  of  the  chambers  of  Wurtemberg,  Bavaria, 
and  Baden,  the  majorities  of  which  are  protectionist.  He  re- 
marked that  France  stood  in  the  way  of  European  progress,  for, 
so  long  as  she  maintained  her  prohibitive  system,  the  other  nations 
of  the  continent  would  be  slow  to  adopt  the  principles  of  Free 
Trade." 

"  Berlin,  July  30th.  —  Went  with  Mr.  Howard  to  call  on  M. 
Kuhne,  one  of  the  originators  of  the  Zollverein.  When  Saxony 
joined  it,  she  objected  to  the  high  duties  which  were  payable  upon 
foreign  goods.  Now  the  manufacturers  of  that  country  are  wanting 
still  higher  protection;  he  is  not  of  opinion  that  Hamburgli  will 
join  the  Zollverein  ;  is  not  sanguine  about  effecting  any  reduction 
of  the  protective  duties ;  only  hopes  to  prevent  tlieir  augmenta- 
tion. M.  Kuhne  has  the  character  of  being  an  able  and  honest 
man.  To  the  museum  ;  the  collection  of  statues  and  busts  but  a 
poor  affair  after  seeing  the  galleries  of  Italy,  and  the  pictures  very 
inferior  to-  those  at  Dresden  or  Vienna.  Called  on  M.  Dieterici, 
Director  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics,  an  earnest  Free  Trader,  says 
all  the  leading  statesmen  of  Prussia  are  opposed  to  the  protective 
system,  which  is  forced  upon  the  Zollverein  by  the  states  of  the 
south,  particularly  Bavaria,  Baden,  and  Wurtemberg,  and  by  the 
manufacturers  of  the  Rhenish  provinces.  Professor  Tellkampf 
called  ;  he  says  the  real  object  wliich  the  Prussian  Government 
has  in  view,  talking  of  differential  duties  on  navigation  to  Eng- 
land, is  to  coerce  Holland  into  a  more  liberal  system,  and  probably 

to  induce  her  to  join  the  Zollverein In  the  conversation 

with  M.  Kuhne  he  touched  upon  the  state  of  Ireland,  and  re- 
marked that  society  has  to  be  reconstructed  in  that  country ;  that 


300  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1847- 

we  have  the  work  of  Cromwell  and  William  to  do  over  again  in  a 
better  manner." 

"Berlin,  July  Zlst  —  Several  persons  called  in  the  morning. 
Went  by  railway  to  Potsdam  to  dine  with  the  king  at  three 
o'clock  at  Sans  Souci.  About  twenty-five  to  thirty  persons  sat 
down,  nearly  all  in  court  costume,  and  most  of  them  in  military 
dresses.  The  king  good-humored  and  affable,  very  little  cere- 
mony, the  dinner  over  at  half-past  four,  when  the  company 
walked  in  the  garden.  On  coming  away  the  king  shook  hands. 
In  the  evening  attended  a  public  dinner  given  to  me  by  about 
180  Free  Traders  of  Berlin,  the  mayor  of  the  city  in  the  chair ; 
he  commenced  the  speaking  at  the  second  course,  and  it  was  kept 
up  throughout  the  dinner,  which  was  prolonged  for  nearly  three 
hours.  Two  thirds  of  the  meeting  appeared  to  understand  my 
English  speech,  which  was  afterwards  translated  into  German 
by  Dr.  Asher.  The  speeches  were  rather  long,  and  the  auditory 
phlegmatic  when  compared  with  an  Italian  dinner-party.  Mr. 
Warren,  the  United  States  Consul  at  Trieste,  made  the  best 
speech,  in  German.  Alluding  to  my  tour  in  France,  Spain,  Italy, 
and  Germany,  he  said  that  no  English  politician  of  former  times, 
no  Chatham,  Burke,  or  Fox,  could  have  obtained  those  proofs  of 
public  sympathy  in  foreign  countries  which  had  been  offered  to 
me  ;  in  their  days  the  politics  of  one  state  were  considered  hos- 
tile to  others ;  not  only  each  nation  was  opposed  to  its  neiglibor, 
but  city  was  against  city,  town  against  country,  class  was  ar- 
ranged against  class,  and  corporations  were  in  hostility  to  indi- 
vidual rights :  he  adduced  the  fact  of  my  favorable  reception  in 
foreign  countries  as  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  broader  and 
more  generous  view  of  the  interests  of  mankind." 

''Berlin,  August  1st.  —  Baron  von  Humboldt  called,  expressed 
in  strong  and  courteous  terms  his  disapproval  of  Lord  Palmerston's 
foreign  policy  in  Portugal  and  Greece,  especially  of  his  demand- 
ing from  the  latter  a  peremptory  payment  of  a  paltry  sum  of 
money.  I  expressed  my  doubts  if  the  Greeks  were  at  present 
fitted  for  constitutional  self-government,  upon  which  he  remarked 
that  it  was  much  easier  for  a  nation  to  preserve  its  independence 

than  its  freedom Wrote  a  note   to  Dr.  Asher  declining 

his  invitation  to  address  a  party  of  Free  Traders,  and  expressing 
my  determination  not  to  interfere  in  the  domestic  concerns  of 
Prussia." 

"  Berli7i,  August  5th.  —  The  Prussian  law  of  1818,  and  the  tariff 
which  followed  it,  form  the  foundation  of  the  German  Zollverein. 
The  former  system  of  Frederick  the  Great,  and  which  had  lasted 
for  upwards  of  half  a  century,  was  one  of  the  most  prohibitive 
in  respect  to  the  importation  of  foreign  goods  ever  enforced. 
The  prohibition  of  the  entrance  of  foreign  manufactures,  even 


iET.43.]  TOUR  OVER  EUROPE.  301 

of  those  of  Saxony,  was  the  rule.  Yet  the  manufactures  of 
Eastern  Prussia  continued  to  decline;  whilst  in  Saxony,  West- 
phalia, and  the  Rhenish  provinces  industry  grew  up,  and  flour- 
ished without  protection.     At  the  end  of  fifty  years  of  the  trial 

of  Frederick's  system,  such  was  the  result The  law  of  26th 

of  May,  1818,  sets  forth  freedom  of  commerce  as  the  fundamental 
principle  of  the  new  system  of  customs  ;  it  enacted  that  as  a  rule 
the  duty  on  foreign  manufactures  shall  not  exceed  ten  per  cent 
ad  valorem  according  to  the  average  prices." 

"  Stettin,  August  7th.  —  Took  leave  of  Kate  this  morning  at  the 
Hamburgh  railway,  and  then  started  for  Stettin  at  seven,  in  com- 
pany with  Mr.  Swaine.  The  railway  passes  through  a  poor 
sandy  country  thinly  peopled,  and  with  light  crops  of  grain. 
The  exportation  of  corn  was  prohibited  this  year  from  Prus- 
sia, also  of  potatoes  in  May ;  one  of  the  ministers  stated  in  the 
Diet  publicly  that  the  latter  measure  could  be  of  no  use,  inas- 
much as  at  that  time  no  potatoes  could  be  sent  out  of  the  coun- 
try with  advantage,  but  advocating  the  law  on  the  plea  that  it 
was  necessary  to  tranquillize  the  people ;  the  use  of  potatoes 
was  also  interdicted  in  distilleries  for  three  months,  by  which  the 
food  for  cattle  (the  residue  of  the  potatoes^  was  curtailed,  and 
caused  great  embarrassment  to  the  proprietors In  the  even- 
ing dined  with  about  eighty  or  ninety  persons,  who  assembled 
at  a  day's  notice  to  meet  me;  the  company  sat  at  dinner  for 
nearly  four  hours ;  speeches  between  each  course ;  the  orators 
launched  freely  into  politics." 

"  Stettin,  August  Sth.  —  The  Baltic  ports  are  in  no  way  bene- 
fited by  the  manufacturing  interests  of  the  south  and  the  Ehen- 
ish  provinces,  and  they  are  directly  sacrificed  by  the  protective 
system.  The  few  furnaces  for  making  iron  in  Silesia,  and  those 
on  the  Ehine,  have  imposed  a  tax  upon  the  whole  community, 
by  laying  on  a  duty  of  20s.  a  ton  upon  pig  iron.  Silesia  is  a 
wheat-growing  country  for  export.  The  protective  duties  of  the 
ZoUverein  are  particularly  injurious  to  the  Baltic  provinces  of 
Prussia,  which  export  wheat,  timber,  and  other  raw  produce. 
The  manufacturing  districts  of  Rhenish  Prussia  are  entirely  cut 
off  and  detached  from  this  part  of  the  kingdom ;  they  receive 
their  imports  and  send  out  their  exports  by  the  Rhine,  not 
through  a  Prussian  port;  thus  the  protective  system  stands  in 
the  way  of  the  increase  of  the  foreign  trade  in  the  Prussian  ports, 
and  stops  the  growth  of  the  mercantile  marine,  without  even 
offering  the  compensation  of  an  artificial  trade  in  manufactures. 
In  fact,  owing  to  her  peculiar  geographical  position,  the  mari- 
time prosperity  of  Prussia  is  more  completely  sacrificed  than  in 
any  other  State  by  the  protective  system." 

"  Dantzic,  August  10th,  1847.  —  ....  Dined  with  about  fifty 


302  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [184?. 

of  the  merchants.  Nearly  all  appeared  to  understand  English, 
several  speakers,  all  in  English,  excepting  one.  There  are  about 
five  or  six  British  merchants  only  here  —  mostly  Scotch.  Dantzic 
is  thoroughly  English  in  its  sympathies." 

"  Togroggen,  Russia,  August  loth. —  Left  Konigsberg  at  seven 
o'clock  tliis  morning  in  an  extra  post  courier  in  company  with 
one  of  Mr.  Adelson's  clerks,  whom  he  kindly  sent  with  me  across 
the  Eussian  frontier. 

"  My  companion,  who  is  a  Pole  and  a  Eussian  subject,  and,  as 
he  terms  himself,  an  Israelite,  gives  me  a  poor  picture  of  the 
character  of  the  Polish  nobility.  Making  a  comparison  between 
them  and  the  Eussians,  he  remarked  that  the  latter  are  barbarians, 
but  the  former  are  civilized  scamps  ;  there  is  some  respect  for 
truth  in  the  Eussian,  but  none  in  the  Pole.  Crossed  the  Niemen 
at  Tilsit ;  were  detained  upon  the  bridge  of  boats  for  half  an  hour 
whilst  several  long  rafts  of  timber  passed ;  the  men  who  w^ere 
upon  them,  and  who  live  for  months  upon  the  voyage  down  from 
Volhynia  to  Memel  on  these  floats,  had  a  wild,  savage  appearance, 
reminding  me  of  the  Irish.  Soon  after,  reached  the  Eussian 
frontier.  I  rallied  my  companion  on  his  rather  thoughtful  aspect 
on  approaching  his  native  country.  '  It  is  not  exactly  fear  that  I 
feel,'  he  replied,  '  but  I  do  find  a  disagreeable  sensation  here,' 
striking  his  breast;  'perhaps  it  is  something  in  the  air  which 
always  affects  me  at  this  spot.'  Arrived  at  Togroggen  at  eight 
o'clock,  the  distance  from  Konigsberg  being  about  a  hundred 
English  miles.  The  chief  of  the  Custom  House  was  very  civil, 
and  declined  to  search  my  luggage. 

"Riga,  August  16th.  —  The  distance  from  Togroggen  to  Eiga  is 
about  220  versts,  or  about  160  miles,  which  are  accomplished 
in  eighteen  hours  exactly,  at  an  expense  of  42s.  The  country 
generally  a  plain  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  with  here  and  there 
only  some  slight  undulations ;  mostly  a  light  soil  and  sandy,  but 
everywhere  capable  of  cultivation.  Large  tracts  covered  with 
forests  of  fir,  interspersed  with  oak,  birch,  &c.,  with  patches  here 
and  there  of  cultivated  land.  The  country  very  thinly  peopled  ; 
the  villages  consist  of  a  few  wooden  houses  thatched  ;  scarcely 
saw  a  stone  or  brick  house.  The  villages  through  which  we 
passed  on  the  high  road  on  the  beginning  of  our  -journey  were 
generally  peopled  with  Jews,  a  dirty,  idle-looking  people,  the  men 
wearing  long  robes  with  a  girdle,  and  the  women  often  with 
turbans,  the  men  also  wearing  the  long  beard.  These  wretched 
beings  creep  about  their  wretched  villages,  or  glance  suspiciously 
out  of  their  doors,  as  if  they  had  a  suspicion  of  some  danger  at 
every  step.  They  never  work  with  their  hands  in  the  fields  or  on 
the  roads  exce])ting  to  avert  actual  starvation." 

"  JSt.  Petershurgh,  Aug.  20th.  —  Called  on  Count  Nesselrode,  the 


^T.43.]  TOUR  OVER  EUROPE.  303 

Foreign  Minister,  a  polite  little  man  of  sixty-five,  with  a  profusion 
of  smiles.  Like  Metternich,  he  strikes  me  more  as  an  adept  at 
finesse  and  diplomacy,  than  as  a  man  of  genius  or  of  powerful 
talent.  He  was  very,  very  civil,  spoke  of  my  Free  Trade  labors, 
which  he  said  would  be  beneficial  to  Kussia,  offered  me  letters  to 
facilitate  my  journey  to  Moscow,  and  invited  me  to  dine.  Called 
on  Lord'Bloomfield,  our  minister,  an  agreeable  man." 

"St.  Petershurgh,  Aug.  21st.  —  Went  at  six  o'clock,  in  company 
with  Colonel  Townsend,  Captain  Little,  and  another,  to  see  the 
grand  parade,  about  twenty-five  versts  from  St.  Petersburgh. 
The  Emperor,  the  finest  man  in  the  field ;  the  Empress,  a  very 
emaciated,  care-worn  person,  resembling  in  her  melancholy  ex- 
pression the  Queen  of  the  French.  It  is  remarkable  that  two  of 
the  most  unhappy  and  suffering  countenances,  and  the  most 
attenuated  frames  I  have  seen  on  the  continent,  are  those  of  these 
two  royal  personages,  the  wives  of  the  greatest  sovereigns  of  the 
continent,  who  have  accidentally  ascended  thrones  to  which  they 
were  not  claimants  by  the  right  of  succession ;  yet  these  victims 
of  anxiety  are  envied  as  the  favorites  of  fortune." 

"  Moscoio,  Aug.  2bth.  —  Started  from  St.  Petersburgh  on  Sunday 
morning,  at  seven,  and  reached  this  place  at  six  this  morning. 
During  the  first  day,  passed  through  several  villages  built  entirely 
of  wood,  generally  of  logs  laid  horizontally  upon  each  other ; 
some  of  these  are  not  without  efforts  at  refinement,  being  orna- 
mented with  rude  carved  work,  and  the  fronts  sometimes  gaudily 
painted.  Many  of  the  houses  appeared  quite  new,  and  others 
were  in  the  course  of  erection ;  it  being  Sunday,  the  inhabitants 
were  in  their  best  clothes  ;  work  seemed  everywhere  suspended. 
There  appears  a  great  traffic  between  the  old  and  new  metropolis, 
both  in  merchandise  and  passengers ;  mail  coaches,  diligences, 
and  private  carriages,  very  numerous.  The  face  of  the  country 
flat  and  monotonous  ;  a  strip  of  cultivated  land,  growing  rye,  oats, 
&c.,  runs  generally  along  the  roadside,  and  beyond,  the  eye  rests 
upon  the  eternal  pine  forests.  The  inns  at  the  post  stations 
excellent ;  in  two  of  them  the  walls  of  the  rooms  were  covered 
with  English  engravings  of  Morland's  village  scenes  ;  tea  every- 
where good,  and  served  promptly,  in  the  English  fashion.  On 
alighting  I  saw  about  thirty  men,  lying  on  two  rows  upon  the 
pavement,  in  the  open  air,  wrapped  in  their  coats  or  sheepskins, 
some  of  their  heads  resting  on  a  pillow  of  hay,  and  others  upon 
the  rough  stones.  I  was  told,  on  inquiry,  that  they  were  postil- 
ions waiting  to  be  called  up,  as  their  services  might  be  required 
—  a  hard  life." 

"  Moscow,  August  25th.  —  After  a  couple  of  hours'  sleep  in  a 
clean  and  comfortable  bed  at  Howard's  English  lodging-house, 
I  sallied  out  alone  for  a  stroll  of  an  hour  or  two.     This  city 


304  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1847. 

surprises  me  ;  I  was  not  prepared  for  so  interesting  and  unique  a 
spectacle.  One  might  fancy  himself  in  Bagdad  or  Grenada 
a  thousand  years  ago.  The  people  are  more  Asiatic  in  their 
appearance  and  dress  than  at  St.  Petersburg!!,  and  also  more 
superstitious,  I  should  say,  judging"  from  the  ceremonials  of  bow- 
ing and  crossing  which  I  see  going  on  at  every  church  door,  and 
opposite  to  every  little  picture  of  the  Virgin.  Everywhere  struck 
with  astonishment  at  the  novel  and  beautiful  features  of  this 
picturesque  city  of  the  Czars." 

"  Nishni  Novogorod,  August  Tlth,  —  Left  Moscow  at  half-past 
seven  on  Wednesday  evening  in  the  same  carriage  by  which  I  had 
come  from  St.  Petersburgh.  It  was  dusk  when  I  passed  beyond 
the  suburbs  of  the  widely  extended  city  of  upwards  of  300,000 
souls.  The  next  morning's  light  revealed  the  same  scenery  as 
that  through  which  I  had  passed  previously ;  the  country  so  flat 
and  the  view  so  constantly  bounded  with  straight  lines  of  fir 
forests,  that  I  was  frequently  under  the  illusion  that  the  ocean 
was  visible  in  the  distant  horizon Keached  Nishni  Novogo- 
rod at  six  o'clock  this  evening,  and  passed  through  a  long  avenu-e 
of  wooden  booths  full  of  merchandise,  and  amidst  crowds  of 
people  to  the  hotel,  where  I  found  comfortable  quarters.  Baron 
Alexander  Meyendorff  called,  chief  of  a  kind  of  Board  of  Trade 
at  Moscow,  an  active-minded  and  intelligent  German,  possessing 
much  statistical  knowledge  about  Eussian  trade  and  manufac- 
tures  He  thinks  the  geographical  and  climatical  features 

of  Eussia  will  always  prevent  its  being  anything  but  a  great 
village,  as  he  termed  it,  it  being  such  a  vast,  unbroken  plain; 
there  are  no  varieties  of  climate  or  occupations,  and  as  the  weather 
is  intensely  cold  for  half  the  year,  every  person  wants  double  the 
quantity  of  land  which  would  suffice  to  maintain  him  in  more 
genial  climates ;  as  there  is  no  coal,  the  pine  forests  are  as  neces- 
sary as  his  rye  field.  Wherever  the  winter  endures  for  upwards 
of  half  the  year,  the  population  must  as  a  general  rule  be  thin," 

"  Nishni  Novogorod,  August  28th.  —  The  Bokhara  caravan  ar- 
rived yesterday,  bringing  about  a  thousand  hundredweight  of 
cotton  from  Asia,  of  a  short  staple  like  our  Surats,  with  skins, 
common  prints,  dressing-gowns  of  silk,  and  other  articles.  I 
visited  three  merchants,  some  of  them  handsome  swarthy  men  ; 
their  goods  were  brought  upon  camels  as  far  as  Orenberg ;  tlie 
journey  from  Bokhara  to  Nishni  occupies  about  three  months. 
This  caravan  had  been  stopped  by  a  tribe  of  the  Kirghese.  One 
of  these  men,  a  knowing,  talkative  fellow,  had  been  in  London 
and  picked  up  a  few  words  of  English.  In  the  evening  dined  and 
took  tea  with  Baron  A.  de  Meyendorff,  and  met  Baronoff,  the  great 

printer  and  manufacturer,  an  energetic  and  sensible  man 

He  has  taken  some  land  on  lease  in  the  territory  of  the  Khan  of 


iET.43.]  TOUR  OVER  EUROPE.  305 

Khiva  for  growing  madder  for  his  print-works;  he  says  that 
the  madder  he  gets  from  Asia  is  cheaper  than  that  which  he 
formerly  got  from  France  and  Holland,  in  the  proportion  of  two 
and  a  half  to  one." 

''Moscow,  Aug.  ^6\st.  —  Found  my  companion  a  man  of  great 
good-nature,  and  full  of  information  upon  the  commerce  and 
manufactures  of  Eussia. 

"  .  .  .  .  The  Emperor  and  the  higher  functionaries  of  the  Gov- 
ernment are  anxious  for  good  administration,  and  they  are  all 
enlightened  and  able  men,  but  the  subordinates  or  bureaucracy 
are  generally  a  corrupt  or  ignorant  body.  There  are  three  or 
four  grave  difficulties  for  the  future  —  the  emancipation  of  the 
serfs  —  the  religious  tone,  which  is  one  of  mere  unmeaning  for- 
malities, and  which,  if  not  adapted  to  the  progress  of  ideas,  will 
become  a  cause  of  infidelity  on  the  one  hand,  and  blind  bigotry 
on  the  other  —  the  tiers-4tat,  comprising  the  freed  serfs,  the  manu- 
facturers, and  the  bureaucracy :  all  these  are  elements  tending  to 
dangerous  collisions  of  opinion  for  the  future,  unless  gradually 
provided  against  by  the  Government. 

'",...  At  Bogorodsk  we  paid  a  visit  to  the  halting  station  of 
prisoners  who  are  on  their  way  from  Moscow  to  Siberia ;  upwards 
of  twenty  were  lying  upon  wooden  benches,  their  heads  resting 
upon  bundles  of  clothes.  Baron  Meyendorff  questioned  them  as 
to  the  cause  of  their  banishment ;  three  confessed  that  theirs  was- 
murder,  and  another  coining :  several  were  for  smaller  offences ;  the 
latter  were  not  ironed  like  the  greater  criminals.  One  man  said 
he  was  exiled  because  he  had  no  passport,  which  meant  that  he 
was  a  vagabond.  One  man  was  recognized  by  the  Baron  as 
having  been  a  servant  in  a  nobleman's  family  which  he  was 
acquainted  with,  and  he  stated,  in  answer  to  the  inquiry,  that  he 
was  sent  to  Siberia  because  he  was  ill-tempered  to  his  owner  and 
master;  this  man,  like  all  the  rest,  seemed  to  be  in  a  state  of 
mental  resignation  quite  oriental.  '  If  God  has  allowed  me  to  be 
banished,  I  suppose  I  deserve  it,'  was  his  remark.  In  another 
room  was  a  prisoner,  a  nobleman,  as  he  was  called,  who  confessed 
to  the  Baron  that  poverty  had  led  him  to  commit  an  act  of  for- 
gery ;  he  was  not  ironed,  nor  was  his  head  shaved  like  the  rest. 
In  a  third  room  were  two  women ;  one  of  them  said  her  offence 
was  being  without  a  passport ;  the  other  was  a  woman  who  stated 
herself  to  be  a  widow,  and  whose  little  daughter,  a  child  about 
seven  years  of  age,  was  sleeping  upon  a  bundle  of  old  clothes  at 
her  side.  She  said  she  was  banished  at  the  request  of  her  mis- 
tress, she  being  her  serf,  because  she  was  ill-tempered.  I  gave 
these  poor  women  some  silver. 

"  ....  On  leaving  the  mill,  a  few  steps  brought  me  into  the 
midst  of  the  agricultural  operations  in  the  neighborhood,  and 

20 


306  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1847. 

what  a  contrast  did  the  implements  of  husbandry  present  to  the 
masterpieces  of  machinery  which  I  had  just  been  inspecting ! 
The  ploughs  were  constructed  upon  the  model  of  those  in  use  a 
thousand  years  ago;  the  scythes  and  reaping-hooks  might  have 
been  the  implements  of  the  ancient  Scythians ;  the  spades  in  the 
hands  of  the  peasants  were  either  entirely  of  wood  or  merely 
tipped  with  iron ;  the  fields  were  yielding  scarcely  a  third  of  the 
crop  of  grain  which  an  English  farmer  would  derive  from  similar 
land ;  there  was  no  science  traceable  in  the  manuring  or  cropping 
of  the  land,  no  intelligence  in  the  improving  of  the  breed  of  the 
cattle,  and  I  could  not  help  asking  myself  by  what  perversity 
of  judgment  an  agricultural  people  could  be  led  to  borrow  from 
England  its  newest  discoveries  in  machinery  for  spinning  cotton, 
and  to  reject  the  lessons  which  it  offered  for  the  improvement  of 
that  industry  upon  which  the  wealth  and  strength  of  the  Eussian 
empire  so  pre-eminently  depend. 

"  .  .  .  .  Baron  Meyendorff  tells  me  that  an  association  of  mer- 
chants proposes  to  export  a  cargo  of  Eussian  manufactures  to  the 
Pacific  as  an  experiment,  and  amongst  the  articles  which  they 
think  of  sending  are  boots  and  shoes,  sail-cloth,  cordage,  low- 
priced  woollens,  linen  towels,  coarse  linens,  such  as  ravenduck ; 
articles  made  of  wood,  such  as  boxes,  &c. ;  and  nails,  &c.  Here 
are  many  manufactured  products  which  are  natural  to  Eussia, 
and  who  can  say  how  much  the  development  of  such  indigenous 
industries  may  be  interfered  with  by  the  protection  of  cotton 
goods,  &c.  ?  Baron  Meyendorff  considers  Eussia  more  favored 
than  any  other  country  in  the  production  of  wools.  In  Eussia 
there  are  public  granaries  in  every  commune,  in  which,  according 
to  law,  there  ought  always  to  be  a  store  of  grain  kept  for  the 
safety  of  the  people  against  scarcity ;  this,  like  all  their  laws  in 
this  great  empire,  is  little  more  than  waste  paper.  Instead  of 
ordering  the  erection  of  public  granaries,  the  Government  would 
have  done  more  wisely  to  have  devoted  its  attention  to  the  con- 
struction of  roads  by  which  grain  could  have  circulated  more 
freely  in  the  country,  and  thus  have  prevented  the  occasional 
famine  in  one  part  of  the  empire  whilst  there  is  a  glut  in  another. 
If  roads  were  made  in  Eussia,  the  merchants  and  dealers  in  grain 
would  supply  the  wants  of  any  particular  district  by  equalizing 
the  supply  of  all." 

"  St.  Petersburgh,  Sept  7th.  —  Some  time  ago  a  Yankee  adven- 
turer asked  permission  to  establish  a  hunting  station  on  the 
North  American  territory  belonging  to  Eussia,  but  it  was  refused. 
A  year  or  two  after  this  occurred.  Baron  Meyendorff  happened  to 
be  calling  upon  his  friend  the  home  minister,  who,  putting  a  let- 
ter into  his  hand,  remarked,  '  Here  is  something  to  amuse  you ;  it 
has  occasioned  me  half  an  hour's  incessant  laughter.'     It  was  a 


iET.43.]  TOUR   OVER  EUROPE.  307 

despatch  from  the  governor  of  Irkutsk,  describing  in  pompous 
language  an  'invasion/  which  had  taken  place  in  the  North 
American  territory  of  the  Russian  empire  by  an  armed  force, 
consisting  of  from  eighty  to  one  hundred  men,  commanded  by 
an  American,  and  having  three  pieces  of  artillery.  It  was  the 
Yankee  fur-trader,  who  had  taken  French  leave  and  squatted 
himself  upon  the  most  favorable  situation  in  the  Czar's  dominions 
for  carrying  on  his  hunting  operations.  The  question  arose  how 
he  was  to  be  ejected.  There  was  no  Eussian  armed  force  or  au- 
thority of  any  kind  within  many  hundreds,  perhaps  thousand, 
miles  of  the  invading  army.  The  expense  of  fitting  out  an  ar- 
mament for  the  purpose  was  then  calculated,  but  the  distance 
and  the  diihculty  of  approaching  the  Yankee  head-quarters  were 
such  formidable  obstacles,  that  it  was  thought  better  to  leave  the 
enemy  in  possession  of  his  conquered  territory,  and  there  he  re- 
mains now,  carrying  on  his  operations  against  the  bears  and  the 
beavers  of  the  Czar  without  molestation.  This  gives  an  idea 
of  the  weakness  of  a  government  whose  dominions  extend  to 
upwards  of  a  twelvemonth's  journey  from  its  capital." 

"  JSt.  Pefershi7'gh,  Sept.  11th. —  .  .  .  .  Dined  at  the  English 
club,  and  met  a  party  of  Russians ;  they  rise  from  table  as  soon 
as  they  have  swallowed  their  dinner,  and  proceed  to  the  card- 
table,  billiards,  or  skittles.  There  is  no  intellectual  society,  no 
topic  of  general  interest  is  discussed  —  an  un-idea'd  party.  My 
table  companions,  the  English  merchants,  were  of  opinion  that 
extensive  smuggling  is  carried  on,  particularly  in  sugar;  they 
spoke  freely  of  the  corruption  of  the  employes,  and  the  general 
propensity  to  live  beyond  their  means.  One  of  them  mentioned 
an  anecdote  of  the  corruption  of  the  government  employes.  He 
had  a  contract  with  one  of  the  departments  for  a  quantity  of  lig- 
num vitce  at  eight  roubles  a  pood ;  upon  its  being  delivered  it  was 
pronounced  inferior,  and  rejected  after  being  stamped  at  the  end 
of  each  log ;  he  called  at  the  bureau  to  complain  and  remonstrate, 
but  without  success ;  and  on  leaving  was  followed  by  a  person 
who  asked  his  address  and  said  he  would  call  upon  him.  He 
was  as  good  as  his  word,  and  the  following  conversation  oc- 
curred :  *  You  have  charged  your  wood  too  low  ;  it  is  not  possible 
to  furnish  a  good  quality  at  eight  roubles;  you  must  send  in 
another  delivery  at  twelve  roubles.*  '  But  I  have  no  other  qual- 
ity,' was  the  reply.  '  Leave  that  to  me,'  said  the  person.  '  You 
must  address  a  petition  to  the  department,  saying  that  you  are 
prepared  to  send  in  another  delivery ;  I  will  draw  up  the  peti- 
tion, you  must  sign  it ;  I  will  manage  the  rest,  and  you  will  pay 
me  1000  roubles,  which  will  be  half  the  difference  of  the  extra 
price  you  will  receive.'  He  consulted  with  his  friends,  who  ad- 
vised him  to  comply,  and  he  accordingly  signed  the  petition.   The 


308  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.         -  [1847. 

person  then  had  the  rejected  lignum  vitoe  conveyed  to  a  ware- 
house where  the  ends  were  sawed  off  the  logs  to  remove  the 
stamp,  and  the  identical  wood  was  delivered,  and  passed  for  full 
weigiit  and  good  quality." 

">S'^.  Fetersburgh,  Sept  12th.  —  Went  in  the  morning  to  the 
Kasan  Catliedral,  where  I  found  a  full  congregation,  two  thirds 
at  least  being  men.  Went  with  Mr.  Edwards  by  railway  to  see 
the  horse  races  at  Tsarskoe  Selo  ;  a  large  proportion  of  the  persons 
who  went  by  the  train  were  English.  The  Emperor  and  his 
family  and  a  good  muster  of  fashionables  were  present  on  the 
course,  but  the  amusements  wanted  life  and  animation,  which 
nothing  but  a  mass  of  people  capable  of  feeling  and  expressing 
an  interest  in  the  sports  of  the  day  can  present.  Afterwards 
went  to  the  Vauxhall  of  Petersburgh  to  dine.  An  Englishman 
accosted  me  in  a  broad  Devonshire  accent,  and  said  he  was  a  free- 
man of  Tavistock,  and  would  give  me  a  plumper  if  I  came  there 
as  a  candidate.  Met  another  man  from  Stockport  who  is  in  a 
cotton  mill  here;  he  says  it  works  from  six  a.m.  to  eight  p.m., 
stopping  for  an  hour ;  that  tlie  engine  runs  thirteen  hours  a  day  ; 
says  double  the  number  of  hands,  as  compared  witli  the  English 
mills,  are  employed  to  produce  a  given  result ;  the  English  laborer 
is  the  cheapest  in  Europe." 

"  >S'^.  Fetersburgh,  Sept.  loth. — Mr.  Edwards,  attache  to  the 
English  ministry,  mentioned  an  anecdote  illustrative  of  the  inor- 
dinate self-complacency  of  my  countrymen.  They  complained  to 
him  that  at  the  Commercial  Association,  a  kind  of  club  consist- 
ing of  natives  and  English,  the  air  of  '  Rule  Britannia '  had  been 
hissed  by  the  Russians ;  they  were  discomposed  at  the  idea  of 
foreigners  being  averse  to  the  naval  domination  of  England  ! " 

''St.  Fetersburgh,  Sept.  15th.  —  Paid  a  visit  to  the  Minister  of 
Finance  ;  he  invited  me  to  speak  to  him  frankly  as  to  my  opinions 
on  the  manufactures  of  Russia,  and  I  profited  by  the  opportunity 
of  making  a  Free  Trade  speech  to  him  of  half  an  hour's  length. 
He  was  reported  to  me  as  an  incompetent,  ignorant  man,  but  he 
has  at  least  the  merit  of  being  willing  to  learn  ;  he  listened  like  a 
man  of  good  common  sense,  and  his  observations  were  very  much 
to  the  point.  M.  de  Boutowsky  called,  who  has  written  a  work 
upon  political  economy  and  in  favor  of  Free  Trade,  in  the  Russian 
language.  In  the  course  of  the  conversation  he  remarked  that 
Peter  the  Great  commenced  the  system  of  regulating  and  inter- 
fering with  trade  and  manufactures  in  Russia.  Another  instance 
added  to  those  of  Cromwell,  Frederick  the  Great,  Louis  XIV., 
Napoleon,  and  Mehemet  Ali,  showing  that  warriors  and  despots 
are  generally  bad  economists,  and  that  they  instinctively  carry 
their  ideas  of  force  and  violence  into  the  civil  policy  of  their  gov- 
ernments.    Free  Trade  is  a  principle  which  recognizes  the  para- 


^T.43.]  TOUR   OVER  EUROPE.  309 

mount  advantage  of  individual  action.  Military  conquerors,  on 
the  contrary,  trust  only  to  the  organized  efforts  of  bodies  of  men 
directed  by  their  own  personal  will. 

"  Dined  with  Count  Nesselrode,  and  sat  beside  Count  Kisseleff, 
one  of  the  ablest  of  the  ministers,  having  the  direction  of  the 
public  domains.  After  dinner,  other  persons  of  rank  joined  us  in 
the  drawing-room,  and  we  had  a  lively  discussion  upon  Free  Trade. 
Count  Kisseleff  talked  freely  and  without  much  knowledge  of  the 
question,  whilst  Nesselrode  sat  quietly  with  the  rest  of  the  com- 
pany Kstening  to  the  controversy.  My  opponents  were  moderate 
in  their  pretensions,  and  made  a  stand  only  for  the  protection  of 
industries  in  their  infancy.  All  parties  threw  overboard  cotton- 
spinning  as  an  exotic  which  ought  not  to  be  encouraged  in  Russia. 
A  Free  Trade  debate  in  Nesselrode's  drawing-room  must  at  least 
have  been  a  novelty." 

"  St.  Fetershurgh,  Sept.  2M.  —  Called  by  invitation  upon  'Prince 
Oldenburgh,  cousin  of  the  Emperor,  a  man  of  amiable  and  intelli- 
gent mind,  a  patron  of  schools  and  charities.  He  spoke  with 
affection  and  admiration  of  England,  of  its  people,  their  religious 
and  moral  character,  their  public  spirit  and  domestic  virtues. 
Speaking  of  Russia,  he  said  that  its  two  greatest  evils  were  cor- 
ruption and  drunkenness.  Was  entertained  at  a  public  dinner 
by  about  two  hundred  merchants  and  others  at  the  establishment 
of  mineral  waters  in  one  of  the  islands ;  a  fine  hall,  prettily  deco- 
rated, and  with  a  band  of  music  in  an  adjoining  room.  After  I 
had  spoken,  an  Englishman  named  Hodgson,  manager  of  Loader's 
spinning  mill,  who  was  formerly  a  Radical  orator  in  England, 
addressed  the  meeting,  pretty  much  in  the  style  of  some  of  my 
old  Chartist  opponents  in  England,  which  afforded  me  an  oppor- 
tunity of  replying  to  him,  greatly  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  meet- 
ing. I  was  struck  with  the  freedom  of  speech  and  absence  of 
restraint  which  pervaded  the  meeting,  and  which  contrasted  with 
the  timidity  I  had  sometimes  seen  in  Italy  and  Austria.  The 
meeting  went  off  well,  and  everybody  seemed  well  satisfied.  Such 
a  numerous  party  had  never  assembled  at  a  public  dinner  in  St. 
Petersburgh." 

"  Lubeck,  Sept.  29th.  —  Left  Cronstadt  at  two  o'clock  o'n  Sunday 
morning,  26th,  by  the  '  Nicolai '  steamer,  and  after  a  favorable 
passage  without  adventures  of  any  kind  reached  Travenmunde  at 
eight  o'clock  this  morning.  My  head  was  too  much  disturbed  by 
the  sea  voyage  to  be  fit  for  numerous  introductions,  so  after  break- 
fasting and  resting  a  few  hours,  I  proceeded  in  company  with  our 
Consul,  who  had  been  so  good  as  to  come  down  to  meet  me,  to 
Lubeck,  a  pleasant  drive  of  nine  miles." 

"  Lubeck,  Sept.  30th.  —  Captain  Stanley  Carr  called ;  he  has  a 
large  estate  about  four  miles  distant,  which  he  has  occupied  for 


310  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1847 

twenty  years,  and  cultivates  with  great  success  upon  the  English 
system.  He  has  a  tliousand  acres  under  the  plough,  a  small 
steam-engine  for  thrashing,  and  all  the  best  implements.  He 
says  he  employs  three  times  as  many  people  as  were  at  work 
upon  the  land  before  he  bought  it ;  he  raises  four  times  as  much 
produce ;  has  drained  and  subsoiled  the  farm  ;  sells  his  butter  and 
cattle  at  twenty-five  per  cent  higher  prices  than  his  neighbors. 
Speaking  of  his  visit  to  Bohemia,  where  he  spent  three  months  of 
last  year,  he  said  the  agriculture  was  in  a  very  wretched  state. 
The  peasants  were  without  capital,  and  the  corvee  system  pre- 
vailed, by  which  the  landlord's  land  was  cultivated  so  badly  by 
the  peasantry  that  he  would  not  accept  an  estate  at  a  gift,  to 
be  obliged  to  work  it  upon  that  system.  He  told  me  an  anecdote 
of  a  man  engaged  in  tlie  manufactory  of  iron  in  that  country, 
who  complained  of  the  competition  of  the  English,  who  'paid  the 
freight  to  Hamburgh,  and  then  the  expense  of  carrying  it  up  the 
Elbe  to  Bohemia,  and  then/  he  added,  *  they  undersell  me  twenty- 
five  per  cent  at  my  own  door,  and  be  d — d  to  them!'  In  con- 
sequence of  which  he  went  off  to  Vienna  to  call  for  higher 
protection  to  the  iron  manufacture,  by  way  of  supporting  '  native 
industry '!....  In  the  evening  was  entertained  by  a  party  of 
about  seventy  merchants  and  others  of  Lubeck  at  a  public  dinner. 
After  dinner  went  to  '  the  cellar '  under  the  Town  Hall,  a  famous 
resort  for  the  people,  where  they  drink  beer,  sing,  and  listen  to 
music.  On  descending  into  these  vaults,  I  was  enveloped  in 
clouds  of  smoke.  At  one  end  was  a  band  of  music;  in  another 
recess  was  a  festive  meeting  of  the  German  savans,  some  of  whom, 
with  their  wives,  were  seated  at  tables ;  others  were  crowded 
round  a  speaker,  who  was  addressing  them,  whilst  almost  invisible 
in  a  cloud  of  smoke.  It  resembled  a  midnight  scene  in  a  *  coal- 
hole '  or  *  finis '  in  London  —  yet  in  this  odd  place  was  to  be  found 
a  hundred  of  the  first  professors  and  literary  men  of  Germany.  I 
was  introduced  to  Grimm,  the  famous  critic  and  linguist." 

''Hamburgh,  Oct.  5th,  1847.  —  In  the  evening  dined  with  about 
seven  hundred  persons  at  a  Free  Trade  banquet ;  Mr.  Euperti  in 
the  chair.  Sat  down  at  half-past  five,  and  the  dinner  and  speeches 
lasted  till  ten.  The  speakers  were  free  in  the  range  of  their 
topics,  advocated  the  freedom  of  the  press,  quizzed  the  regulations 
of  the  city  of  Hamburgh,  and  turned  into  ridicule  the  Congress  of 
Vienna  and  the  Germanic  Diet." 

"Manchester,  Oct.  12th.  —  Left  the  Elbe  on  Saturday  morning, 
9th,  and  reached  London  on  Monday  at  eleven  o'clock.  Was  told 
on  board  that  the  steamers  carry  cattle  from  Hamburgh  to  London' 
for  thirty  shillings  a  head,  and  sheep  for  three  shillings.  Slept  at 
the  Victoria  Hotel,  Euston  Square,  on  Monday,  and  left  for  Man- 
chester by  the  six  o'clock  train  on  Tuesday,  reaching  home  at 
three  o'clock." 


JET.  43.]  ELECTION    FOR  THE   WEST   RIDING.  311 


CHAPTEE   XIX. 

ELECTION  FOR  THE  WEST  RIDING. — PURCHASE   OF  DUNFORD. — 
CORRESPONDENCE. 

During  Cobden's  absence  in  the  autumn  of  1847,  a  general  elec- 
tion had  taken  place.  While  he  was  at  St.  Petersburg  he  learned 
that  he  had  been  returned  not  only  for  his  former  borough  of  . 
Stockport,  but  for  the  great  constituency  of  the  West  Biding  of  ^ 
Yorkshire.  He  wrote  to  thank  Mr.  Bright  for  his  powerful  and 
friendly  services  at  the  election.  "  But  I  cannot  conceal  from 
you/'  he  went  on  to  say,  "  that  my  return  for  the  West  Hiding  has 
very  much  embarrassed  and  annoyed  me.  Personally  and  pub- 
licly speaking,  I  should  have  preferred  Stockport.  It  is  the  great- 
est compliment  ever  offered  to  a  public  man  ;  but  had  I  been 
consulted,  I  should  have  respectfully  declined."  ^  After  the  com- 
pliment had  actually  been  conferred,  it  was  too  late  to  refuse  it,  y 
and  Cobden  represented  the  West  Riding  in  two  Parliaments,  '^^ 
until  the  political  crash  came  in  1857.  The  triumph  of  Cobden's 
election  for  the  great  Yorkshire  constituency  was  matched  by  the 
election  of  Mr.  Bright  for  Manchester,  in  spite  of  the  active  and 
unscrupulous  efforts  of  some  old-fashioned  Liberals.  They  pre- 
tended to  find  him  violent  and  reckless,  he  wanted  social  position, 
and  so  forth.  For  the  time  they  were  swept  away  by  the  over- 
whelming wave  of  Mr.  Bright's  popularity,  but  they  nursed  their 
wrath  and  had  their  revenge  ten  years  afterwards. 

Another  important  step  had  been  taken  while  Cobden  was 
abroad.  His  business  was  brought  to  an  end,  and  the  affairs  relat- 
ing to  it  wound  up  by  one  or  two  of  his  friends.  A  considerable 
portion  of  the  sum  which  had  been  subscribed  for  the  national 
testimonial  to  him,  had  been  absorbed  in  settling  outstanding 
claims.  With  a  part  of  what  remained  Cobden,  immediately  after 
his  return  from  liis  travels,  purchased  the  small  property  at  Dun- 
ford  on  which  he  was  born.  He  gave  up  his  house  in  Manchester, 
and  when  in  London  lived  for  some  years  to  come  at  Westbourne 
Terrace.  Afterwards,  he  lived  in  lodgings  during  the  session,  or 
more  frequently  accepted  quarters  at  the  house  of  one  of  his  more 
intimate  friends,  Mr.  Hargreaves,  Mr.  Schwabe,  or  Mr.  Paulton. 
His  home  was  henceforth  at  Dunford.  His  brother  Frederick, 
who  had  shared  the  failure  of  their  fortunes  at  Manchester,  took 
up  his  abode  with  him  and  remained  until  his  death  iu  1858. 

1  Sept.  18,  1847. 


/ 


312  LIFE  OF   COBDEN.  [1847. 

Five  or  six  years  after  the  acquisition  of  his  little  estate,  Cobden 
pulled  down  the  ancestral  farm-house,  and  built  a  modest  resi- 
dence upon  the  site.  In  this  for  the  rest  of  his  life  he  passed  all 
the  time  that  he  could  spare  from  public  labors.  Once  in  these 
days,  Cobden  was  addressing  a  meeting  at  Aylesbury.  He  talked 
of  the  relations  of  landlord  and  tenant,  and  referred  by  way  of 
•  illustration  to  his  own  small  property.  Great  is  the  baseness  of 
men.  Somebody'  in  the  crowd  called  out  to  ask  him  how  he  had 
got  his  property.  "  I  am  indebted  for  it,"  said  Cobden,  with 
honest  readiness,  "  to  the  bounty  of  my  countrymen.  It  was  the 
scene  of  my  birth  and  my  infancy ;  it  was  tlie  property  of  my 
ancestors  ;  and  it  is  by  the  munificence  of  my  countrymen  that 
this  small  estate,  which  had  been  alienated  from  my  father  by 
necessity,  has  again  come  into  my  hands,  and  enabled  me  to  light 
up  afresh  the  hearth  of  my  father  where  I  spent  my  own  child- 
hood. I  say  that  no  warrior  duke  who  owns  a  vast  domain  by 
the  vote  of  the  Imperial  Parliament,  holds  his  property  by  a  more 
honorable  title  than  I  possess  mine."  ^  If  the  baseness  of  men  is 
great,  so  too  is  their  generosity  of  response  to  a  magnanimous 
appeal,  and  the  boisterous  cheering  of  the  crowd  showed  that  they 
felt  Cobden's  answer  to  be  good  and  sufficient. 

The  following  is  Cobden's  own  account,  at  the  time,  of  the 
country  in  which  he  had  once  more  struck  a  little  root.  He  is 
writing  to  Mr.  Ashworth  :  — 

"  Midhurst,  Oct.  7,  1850.  —  I  have  been  for  some  weeks  in  one 
of  the  most  secluded  corners  of  England.  Although  my  letter  is 
dated  from  the  quiet  little  close  borough  of  Midhurst,  the  house 
in  which  I  am  living  is  about  one  and  a  half  miles  distant,  in  the 
neighboring  rural  parish  of  Heyshott.  The  roof  which  now 
shelters  me  is  that  under  which  I  was  born,  and  the  room  where 
I  now  sleep  is  the  one  in  which  I  first  drew  breath.  It  is  an  old 
farm-house,  which  had  for  many  years  been  turned  into  laborers' 
cottages.  With  the  aid  of  the  whitewasher  and  carpenter,  we 
have  made  a  comfortable  weather-proof  retreg^t  for  summer ;  and  we 
are  surrounded  with  pleasant  woods,  and  within  a  couple  of  miles 
of  the  summit  of  the  South  Down  hills,  where  we  have  the  finest 
air  and  some  of  the  prettiest  views  in  England.  At  some  future 
day  I  shall  be  delighted  to  initiate  you  into  rural  life.  A  Sussex 
hillside  village  will  be  an  interesting  field  for  an  exploring  excur- 
sion for  you.  We  have  a  population  under  three  hundred  in  our 
parish.  The  acreage  is  about  2000,  of  which  one  proprietor.  Colo- 
nel Wyndham,  owns  1200  acres.  He  is  a  non-resident,  as  indeed 
are  all  the  other  proprietors.  The  clergyman  is  also  non-resident. 
He  lives  at  the  village  of  Sledham,  about  three  miles  distant. 


i.  440.     Jan.  9,  1850.     In  the  same  place  will  be  found  his  account 
of  the  way  in  which  he  dealt  with  his  land. 


MI.4.Z.']  PURCHASE  OF  DUNFORD.  313 

where  he  has  another  living  and  a  parsonage-house.  He  comes 
over  to  our  parish  to  perform  service  once  on  Sundays,  alternately 
in  the  morning  and  afternoon.  The  church  is  in  a  ruinous  state, 
the  tower  having  fallen  down  many  years  ago.  The  parson  draws 
about  300/.  a  year  in  tithes,  besides  the  produce  of  a  few  acres  of 
glebe  land.  He -is  a  decent  man,  with  a  large  family,  spoken  well 
of  by  everybody,  and  himself  admits  the  evils  of  clerical  absentee- 
ism. We  have  no  school  and  no  schoolmaster,  unless  I  give  that 
title  to  a  couple  of  cottages  where  illiterate  old  women  collect  a 
score  or  two  of  infants  whilst  their  parents  are  in  the  fields.  Thus 
'our  village'  is  without  resident  proprietors  or  clergyman  o^^' 
schoolmaster.  Add  to  these  disadvantages,  that  the  farmers  are 
generally  deficient  of  capital,  and  do  not  employ  so  many  laborers 
as  they  might.  The  rates  have  been  up  to  this  time  about  six 
shillings  in  the  pound.  We  are  not  under  the  new  poor  law,  but 
in  a  Gilbert's  Union,  and  almost  all  our  expense  is  for  outdoor 
relief. 

"  Here  is  a  picture  which  will  lead  you  to  expect  when  you 
visit  us  a  very  ignorant  and  very  poor  population.  There  is  no 
post-office  in  the  village.  Every  morning  an  old  man,  aged  about 
seventy,  goes  into  Midhurst  for  the  letters.  He  charges  a  penny 
for  every  despatch  he  carries,  including  such  miscellaneous  articles 
as  horse  collars,  legs  of  mutton,  empty  sacks,  and  wheelbarrows. 
His  letter-bag  for  the  whole  village  contains  on  an  average  from 
two  to  three  letters  daily,  including  newspapers.  The  only  news- 
papers which  enter  the  parish  are  two  copies  of  Bell's  Weekly 
Messenger,  a  sound  old  Tory  Protectionist  much  patronized  by 
drowsy  farmers.  The  wages  paid  by  the  farmers  are  very  low,  not 
exceeding  eight  shillings  a  week.  I  am  employing  an  old  man 
nearly  seventy,  and  his  son  about  twenty-two,  and-  his  nephew 
about  nineteen,  at  digging  and  removing  some  fences.  I  pay  the 
two  former  nine  shillings  a  week  and  the  last  eight  shillings,  and 
I  am  giving  a  shilling  a  week  more  than  anybody  else  is  paying. 
What  surprises  me  is  to  observe  how  well  the  poor  fellows  work, 
and  how  long  they  last.  The  South  Down  air,  in  the  absence  of 
South  Down  mutton,  has  something  to  do  with  the  healthiness  of 
these  people,  I  dare  say.  The  laborers  have  generally  a  garden, 
and  an  allotment  of  a  quarter  of  an  acre ;  for  the  latter  they  pay 
three  and  ninepence  a  year  rent.  We  are  in  the  midst  of  woods, 
and  on  the  borders  of  common  land,  so  that  fuel  is  clieap.  All 
the  poor  have  a  right  to  cut  turf  on  the  common  for  their  firing, 
which  costs  two  shillings  and  threepence  per  thousand.  The 
laborers  who  live  in  my  cottages  have  pigs  in  their  sties,  but  I 
believe  it  is  not  so  universally.  I  have  satisfied  myself  that,  how- 
ever badly  off  the  laborers  may  be  at  present,  their  condition  was 
worse  in  the  time  of  high-priced  corn.     In  1847,  when  bread  was 


y 


314  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1847. 

double  its  present  price,  the  wages  of  the  farm  laborers  were  not 
raised  more  than  two  to  three  shillings  a  week.  At  that  time  a 
man  with  a  family  spent  all  he  earned  for  bread,  and  still  had  not 
enough  to  sustain  his  household.  I  have  it  both  from  the  laborers 
themselves  and  the  millers  from  whom  they  buy  their  flour,  that 
they  ran  so  deeply  in  debt  for  food  during  the  high  prices  of  1847, 
that  they  have  scarcely  been  able  in  some  cases  up  to  the  present 
to  pay  off  their  score.  The  class  feeling  amongst  the  agricultural 
laborers  is  in  favor  of  a  cheap  loaf.  They  dare  not  say  much 
about  it  openly,  but  their  instincts  are  serving  them  in  the  absence 
of  economical  knowledge,  and  they  are  unanimously  against 
Chowler  and  the  Protectionists. 

"  I  can  hardly  pretend  that  in  this  world's-end  spot  we  can  say 
that  any  impulse  has  been  given  to  the  demand  for  agricultural 
laborers  by  the  Free  Trade  policy.  Ours  is  about  the  last  place 
which  will  feel  its  good  effects.  But  there  is  one  good  sign  which 
augurs  well  for  the  future.  Skilled  laborers,  such  as  masons, 
joiners,  blacksmiths,  painters,  and  so  on,  are  in  very  great  request, 
and  it  is  difficult  to  get  work  of  that  kind  done  in  moderate  time. 
1  am  inclined  to  think  that  in  more  favorable  situations  an  impulse 
has  likewise  been  imparted  to  unskilled  labor.  It  is  certain  that 
during  the  late  harvest- time  there  was  a  great  difficulty  in  obtain- 
ing hands  on  the  south  side  of  the  Downs  towards  the  sea-coast, 
where  labor  is  in  more  demand  than  here  under  the  north  side  of 

y  the  hills.  I  long  to  live  to  see  an  agricultural  laborer  strike  for 
wages ! " 

Before  he  had  been  many  weeks  in  England,  Cobden  was  drawn 
into  the  eager  discussion  of  other  parts  of  his  policy,  which  were 
^  fully  as  important  as  Free  Trade  itself.  The  substitution  of  Lord 
Palmerston  for  Lord  Aberdeen  at  the  Foreign  Office  was  instantly 
followed  by  the  active  intervention  of  the  British  Government  in 
the  affairs  of  other  countries.  There  was  an  immediate  demand 
for  increased  expenditure  on  armaments.  Augmented  expenditure 
meant  augmented  taxation.  Each  of  the  three  items  of  the  pro- 
\/  gramme  was  the  direct  contradictory  of  the  system  which  Cobden 
believed  to  be  not  only  expedient  but  even  indispensable.  His 
political  history  from  this  time  down  to  the  year  when  they  both 
died,  is  one  long  antagonism  to  the  ideas  which  were  concentrated 
in  Lord  Palmerston.  Yet  Cobden  was  too  reasonable  to  believe 
that  there  could  be  a  material  reduction  in  armaments,  until  a 
great  change  had  taken  place  in  the  public  opinion  of  the  country 
with  respect  to  its  foreign  policy.     He  always  said  that  no  Minister 

W  could  reduce  armaments  or  expenditure,  until  the  English  people 
abandoned  the  notion  that  they  w^ere  to  regulate  the  affairs  of  the 
world.  "  In  all  my  travels,"  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Bright,  "  three  re- 
flections constantly  occur  to  me  :  how  much  unnecessary  solicitude 


iET.43.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  315 

and  alarm  England  devotes  to  the  affairs  of  foreign  countries ;  with 
how  little  knowledge  we  enter  upon  the  task  of 'regulating  the  > 
concerns  of  other  people ;  and  how  much  better  we  might  employ 
our  energies  in  improving  matters  at  home."  ^  He  knew  that  the 
influential  opinion  of  the  country  was  still  against  him,  and  that 
it  would  be  long  before  it  turned.  "  Until  that  time,"  he  said,  in 
words  which  may  be  usefully  remembered  by  politicians  who  are 
fain  to  reap  before  they  have  sown,  "  I  am  content  to  be  on  this 
question,  as  I  have  been  on  others,  in  a  minority,  and  in  a  minority 
to  remain,  until  I  get  a  majority." 

While  he  was  away  that  famous  intrigue  known  as  the  Spanish 
Marriages  took  place.  The  King  of  the  French,  guided  by  the 
austere  and  devout  Guizot,  so  contrived  the  marriages  of  the  Queen 
of  Spain  and  her  sister,  that  in  the  calculated  default  of  issue  from 
the  Queen,  the  crown  of  Spain  would  go  to  the  issue  of  her  sister 
and  the  Duke  of  Montpensier,  Louis  Philippe's  son.  Cobden,  as 
we  shall  see,  did  not  believe  that  the  King  was  looking  so  far  as  this. 
It  was  in  any  case  a  disgraceful  and  odious  transaction,  but  events 
very  speedily  proved  how  little  reason  there  was  why  it  should 
throw  the  English  Foreign  Office  into  a  paroxysm.  Cobden  was 
moved  to  write  to  Mr.  Bright  upon  it :  — 

"  My  object  in  writing  again  is  to  speak  upon  the  Marriage 
question.  I  have  seen  with  humiliation  that  the  daily  newspaper 
press  of  England  has  been  lashing  the  public  mind  into  an  excite- 
ment (or  at  least  trying  to  do  so)  upon  the  alliance  of  the  Duke  of 
Montpensier  with  the  Infanta.  I  saw  this  boy  and  girl  married, 
and  as  I  looked  at  them,  I  could  not  help  exclaiming  to  myself, 
'  What  a  couple  to  excite  the  animosity  of  the  people  of  England 
and  France  ! '  Have  we  not  outgrown  the  days  when  sixty  millioDs 
of  people  could  be  set  at  loggerheads  by  a  family  intrigue  ?  Yes, 
we  have  probably  grown  wiser  than  to  repeat  the  War  of  Succession, 
but  I  see  almost  as  great  an  evil  as  actual  hostilities  in  the  tone  of 
the  press  and  the  intrigues  of  the  diplomatists  of  England  and 
France.  They  keep  the  two  nations  in  a  state  of  distrust  and  alien- 
ation, they  familiarize  us  with  the  notion  that  war  is  still  a  pos- 
sible event,  and  worse  still,  they  furnish  the  pretext  for  continually 
augmenting  our  standing  armaments,  and  thus  oppressing  and  de- 
grading the  people  with  taxation,  interrupting  the  progress  of  fiscal 
reforms,  and  keeping  us  in  a  hostile  attitude  ready  for  war. 

"  I  began  my  political  life  by  writing  against  this  system  of 
foreign  interference,  and  every  year's  experience  confirms  me  in   ^ 
my  early  impression  that  it  lies  at  the  bottom  of  much  of  our  mis- 
government  at  home.     My  visit  to  Spain  has  strengthened  if  pos- 
sible a  hundredfold  my  conviction  that  aU  attempts  of  England  to 

1  To  Mr.  Bright.     Sept.  18,  1847. 


316  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1847. 

control  or  influence  the  destinies,  political  and  social,  of  that 
country  are  worse  than  useless.  They  are  mischievous  alike  to 
Spaniards  and  Englishmen.  They  are  a  peculiar  people  not  under- 
stood by  us.  They  have  one  characteristic,  however,  which  their 
whole  history  might  have  revealed  to  us,  i.  e.  their  inveterate  re- 
pugnance to  all  foreign  influences  and  alliances,  and  their  uncon- 
querable resistance  to  foreign  control.  No  country  in  Europe 
besides  is  so  isolated  in  its  prejudices  of  race  and  caste.  It  has 
ever  been  so,  whether  in  the  times  of  the  Eomans,  of  the  Saracens, 
of  Louis  XIV.,  or  of  Napoleon.  No  people  are  more  willing  to 
call  in  the  aid  of  foreign  arms  or  diplomacy  to  fight  their  battles, 
but  they  despise  and  suspect  the  motives  of  all  who  come  to  help 
them,  and  they  turn  against  them  the  moment  their  temporary 
purpose  is  gained.  As  for  any  other  nation  permanently  swaying 
the  destinies  of  Spain,  or  finding  in  it  an  ally  to  be  depended  on 
against  other  Powers,  it  would  be  as  easy  to  gain  such  an  object 
with  the  Bedouins  of  the  Desert,  with  whom,  by  the  way,  the 
Spaniards  have  no  slight  affinity  of  character.  No  one  who  knows 
the  people,  nobody  who  has  read  their  history,  can  doubt  this ; 
and  yet  our  diplomatists  and  newspaper-writers  are  pretending 
alarm  at  the  marriage  of  the  youngest  son  of  Louis  Philippe  with 
the  Infanta,  on  the  ground  of  the  possible  future  union  of  the  two 
countries  under  one  head,  or  at  least  under  one  influence.  No- 
body knows  the  absurdity  of  any  such  contingency  better  than 
Louis  Philippe.  He  feels,  no  doubt,  that  it  is  difficult  enough  to 
secure  one  throne  permanently  for  his  dynasty,  and  unless  his 
sagacity  be  greatly  overrated,  he  would  shrink  from  the  possibility 
of  one  of  his  descendants  ever  attempting  to  wear  at  the  same 
time  the  crowns  of  Spain  and  France.  I  believe  the  French  King 
to  have  had  but  one  object,  —  to  secure  a  rich  wife  for  his  younger 
son.  He  is  perhaps  a  little  avaricious  in  his  old  age,  like  most 
other  men.  But  I  care  nothing  for  his  motives  or  policy.  Looking 
to  the  facts,  I  ask  why  should  the  French  and  English  people 
allow  themselves  to  be  embroiled  by  such  family  manoeuvres  ?  He 
may  have  been  treacherous  to  our  Queen,  but  why  should  kings 
and  queens  be  allowed  to  enter  into  any  marriage  compacts  in  the 
name  of  their  people  ?  You  will  perhaps  tell  me  when  you  write 
that  the  bulk  of  the  middle  class,  the  reflecting  portion  of  the 
people  of  England,  do  not  sympathize  with  the  London  daily  press 
on  the  subject  of  the  Marriage  question  ;  and  I  know^  that  there  is 
a  considerable  portion  of  the  more  intelligent  French  people  who 
do  not  approve  of  all  that  is  written  in  the  Paris  papers.  But, 
unhappily,  the  bulk  of  mankind  do  not  think  for  themselves.  The 
newspapers  write  in  the  name  of  the  two  countries,  and  to  a  great 
extent  they  form  public  opinion.  Governments  and  diplomatists 
act  upon  the  views  expressed  in  the  influential  journals. 


^T.43.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  317 

" .  .  .  .  There  is  one  way  in  which  this  system  of  interfering  in 
the  politics  of  Spain  is  especially  mischievous.  It  prevents  Span- 
ish parties  from  being  formed  upon  a  purely  domestic  basis,  and 
thus  puts  off  the  day  when  the  politicians  shall  devote  them- 
selves to  their  own  reforms.  At  present,  all  the  intrigues  of 
Madrid  revolve  round  the  diplomatic  manoeuvres  of  France  and 
England.  There  is  another  evil  arising  out  of  it.  It  gives  the 
bulk  of  the  Spaniards  a  false  notion  of  their  own  position.  They 
are  a  proud  people,  they  think  all  Europe  is  busy  with  their 
affairs,  they  hear  of  France  and  England  being  on  the  point  oi\y^ 
going  to  war  about  the  marriage  of  one  of  their  princesses,  they 
imagine  that  Spain  is  the  most  important  country  in  the  world, 
and  thus  they  forget  their  own  ignorance,  poverty,  and  political 
degradation,  and  of  course  do  not  occupy  themselves  in  domestic 
reforms.  If  left  to  themselves,  they  would  soon  find  out  their 
inferiority,  for  they  are  not  without  a  certain  kind  of  common 
sense. 

"I  have  always  had  an  instinctive  monomania  against  this 
system  of  foreign  interference,  protocoUing,  diplomatizing,  etc., 
and  I  should  be  glad  if  you  and  our  other  Free  Trade  friends, 
who  have  beaten  the  daily  broad-sheets  into  common  sense  upon 
another  question,  would  oppose  yourselves  to  the  Palmerston  sys-\_y 
tem,  and  try  to  prevent  the  Foreign  Office  from  undoing  the  good 
which  the  Board  of  Trade  has  done  to  the  people.  But  you  must 
not  disguise  from  yourself  that  the  evil  has  its  roots  in  the' pug- 
nacious, energetic,  self-sufficient,  foreigner  despising  and  pitying 
character  of  that  noble  insular  creature,  John  Bull.  Bead  Wash- 
ington Irving's  description  of  him  tumbling  for  his  cudgel  always 
the  moment  he  hears  of  any  row  taking  place  anywhere  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  and  bristling  up  with  anger  at  the  very  idea  of 
any  other  people  daring  to  have  a  quarrel  without  first  asking  his 
consent  or  inviting  him  to  take  a  part  in  it. 

" .  .  .  .  And  the  worst  fact  is,  that  however  often  we  increase 
our  establishments,  we  never  reduce  them.  Thus  in  1834  and 
1835,  Mr.  Urquhart  and  the  daily  press  did  their  utmost  to 
frighten  the  people  of  England  into  the  notion  that  Bussia  was 
going  to  swallow  Turkey,  and  then  would  land  some  fine  morning 
at  Yarmouth  to  make  a  breakfast  of  England.  Our  armaments 
were  accordingly  increased.  In  1840  the  Whigs  called  for  5000 
additional  soldiers  to  put  down  Chartism.  In  1846  still  further 
armaments  were  voted  to  meet  the  Oregon  dispute.  These  pre-^ 
tences  have  all  vanished,  but  the  ships  and  soldiers  remain,  and 
taxes  are  paid  to  support  them.  Keep  your  eye  upon  our  good 
friend  Ward,  or  depend  on  it  he  will  be  wanting  more  ships  on 
the  plea  of  our  unsettled  relations  with  Spain  and  France.  Prob- 
ably that  is  the  reason  why  you  read  of  Admiral  Parker  being 


318  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1848. 

sent  to  this  coast,  and  his  fleet  placed  at  the  orders  of  Mr.  Bulwer, 
of  steamers  passing  between  Gibraltar  and  the  Fleet,  etc.  All 
this  may  be  intended  to  prepare  John  Bull  for  a  haul  upon  his 
purse  for  more  ships  next  session ;  at  least  it  may  be  an  argument 
to  pass  the  navy  estimates  with  acclamation.  As  for  any  other 
rational  object  being  gained,  it  is  not  in  my  power  here  on  the 
spot  to  comprehend  it.  The  English  merchants  laugh  at  the  pre- 
tence set  up  by  our  Admiral  to  the  Spanish  authorities  on  the 
coast  to  excuse  his  appearance  in  such  force  *  that  he  comes  to 
protect  British  interests.'  The  British  residents  have  no  fear  of 
any  injuries.  I  have  seen  Englishmen  who  have  lived  here  dur- 
ing about  a  score  of  revolutions,  and  witnessed  a  hundred  changes 
of  ministries,  and  who  laugh  at  the  idea  of  any  danger.  To  sum 
up  in  a  word,  our  meddling  with  this  country  is  purely  mis- 
chievous to  all  parties,  and  can  do  no  good  to  Spaniards  or  Eng- 
lishmen. And  I  hope  you  will  do  your  best  to  stem  the  spirit 
with  which  it  is  encouraged  in  the  daily  press.  I  was  glad  to  see 
the  good  sense  in  your  paper,  the  Manchester  Examiner,  upon  the 
subject,  and  equally  sorry  to  observe  that  our  good  friend,  James 
Wilson,  had  been  carried  away  by  the  current.  I  wrote  to  him 
from  Madrid.  I  fear  it  is  too  much  to  expect  any  man  to  live  in 
London  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  clubs  and  political  cliques,  and 
preserve  the  independent  national  tone  in  his  paper,  which  we 
had  hoped  for  in  the  EcoTwmist!'  ^ 

Lord  Palmerston's  intervention  in  the  affairs  of  Portugal  was 
more  active,  and  even  more  wantonly  preposterous.  All  that 
Cobden  said  on  this  subject  was  literally  true.  The  British  fleet 
was  kept  in  the  Tagus  for  many  months  in  order  to  protect  the 
Queen  of  Portugal  against  her  own  subjects.  What  had  England 
to  gain  ?  Portugal  was  one  of  the  smallest,  poorest,  most  decayed 
and  abject  of  European  countries.  As  for  her  commerce,  said 
Cobden,  if  that  is  what  you  seek,  you  are  sure  of  that,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  you  take  four  fifths  of  all  her  port  wine,  and 
if  you  did  not,  no  one  else  would  ilrink  it.  Our  statesmen,  he 
went  on,  actually  undertook  to  say  who  should  govern  Portugal, 
and  they  stipulated  that  the  Cortes  should  be  governed  on  con- 
stitutional principles.  The  Cortes  was  elected,  and  what  hap- 
pened ?  The  people  returned  almost  every  man  favorable  to  the 
very  statesman  who,  as  Lord  Palmerston  insisted,  was  to  have  no 
influence  in  Portugal.^ 

What  Cobden  heard  from  Bastiat  made  him  all  the  more  anx- 

1  To  Mr.  Bright.     Oct.  24,  1846. 

2  Speeches,  i.  466.  Jan.  27,  1848.  See  for  the  other  side  of  the  matter,  Mr. 
A.^\eY&  Life  of  Lord  Palmerston,  ii.  14-30.  Lord  Palmerston's  reference  (p.  16) 
to  the  anxiety  and  uneasiness  of  the  Queen  and  the  Prince  Consort  at  Windsor 
shows,  among  many  other  proofs,  how  well  founded  were  Cobden's  notions  of  the 
particular  forces  that  were  at  work  behind  the  poKcy  of  Intervention. 


iET.44.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  319 

ious  to  bring  England  round  to  a  more  sedate  policy.  The  chief 
obstacles  to  the  propagandisin  of  Tree  Trade  in  France,  said  Bas-  "'^' 
tiat,  come  from  your  side  of  the  Channel.  He' was  confronted  by 
the  fact  that  at  the  very  time  when  Peel  consummated  the  policy 
of  Free  Trade,  he  asked  for  an  extra  credit  for  the  army,  as  if  to 
proclaim,  said  Bastiat,  that  he  had  no'  faith  in  his  own  work,  and 
as  if  to  thrust  back  our  best  arguments  down  our  own  throats. 
Thirteen  years  afterwards,  when  Cobden  was  himself  engaged  in 
converting  France  to  Free  Trade,  while  Lord  Palmers  ton  was  at 
the  same  moment  increasing  the  fleet,  raising  new  fortifications, 
and  making  incendiary  speeches,  Bastiat's  words  of  1847  may 
have  come  back  to  his  mind:  "  Besides  the  extra  credit,  the  policy 
of  your  government  is  still  marked  by  a  spirit  of  taquinerie,  which 
irritates  the  French  people,  and  makes  it  lose  whatever  impar- 
tiality it  may  have  had  left."  ^ 

"  I  must  speak  to  you  in  all  frankness,"  Bastiat  proceeded,  in 
his  urgent  way.  "  In  adopting  Free  Trade  England  has  not 
adopted  the  policy  that  flows  logically  from  Free  Trade.  Will 
she  do  so  ?  I  cannot  doubt  it,  but  when  ?  The  position  taken 
by  you  and  your  friends  in  Parliament  will  have  an  immense 
influence  on  the  course  of  our  undertaking.  If  you  energetically 
disarm  your  diplomacy,  if  you  succeed  in  reducing  your  naval 
forces,  we  shall  be  strong.  If  not,  what  kind  of  figure  shall  we 
cut  before  our  public  ?  When  we  predict  that  Free  Trade  will 
draw  English  policy  into  the  way  of  justice,  peace,  economy, 
colonial  emancipation,  France  is  not  bound  to  take  our  word  for 
it.  There  exists  an  inveterate  mistrust  of  England,  I  will  even 
say  a  sentiment  of  hostility,  as  old  as  the  two  names  of  French 
and  English.  Well,  there  are  excuses  for  this  sentiment.  What 
is  wrong  is  that  it  envelops  all  your  parties  and  all  your  fellow- 
citizens  in  the  same  reprobation.  But  ought  not  nations  to  judge 
one  anotlier  by  external  acts  ?  They  often  say  that  we  ought  not 
to  confound  nations  with  their  governments.  There  is  some  truth 
and  some  falsehood  in  this  maxim ;  and  I  venture  to  say  that  it 
is  false  as  regards  nations  that  possess  constitutional  means  of 
making  opinion  prevail.  England  ought  to  bring  her  political  v/ 
system  into  harmony  with  her  new  economic  system."  ^ 

Cobden  in  reply  seems  to  have  treated  this  apprehension  of 
English  naval  force,  and  the  hostile  use  to  which  it  might  be  put, 
as  a  device  of  the  French  Protectionists  to  draw  attention  from 
the  true  issue.  No,  answered  Bastiat  manfully ;  "  I  know  my 
country  ;  it  sees  that  England  is  capable  of  crushing  all  the  navies 
in  the  world ;  it  knows  that  it  is  led  by  an  oligarchy  which  has 
no  scruples.     That  is  what  disturbs  its  sight,  and  hinders  it  from 

1  Bastiat,  i.  152.  a  Bastiat  to  Cobden.     Oct.  15,  1847. 


v/ 


V 


320  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1848. 

understatiding  Free  Trade.  I  say  more,  that  even  if  it  did  under- 
stand Free  Trade,  it  would  not  care  for  it  on  account  of  its  purely 
economic  advantages.  What  you  have  to  show  it  above  all  else 
is  that  freedom  of  exchange  will  cause  the  disappearance  of  those 
military  perils  which  France  apprehends.  England  ought  seri- 
ously to  disarm  ;  spontaneously  to  drop  her  underground  opposi- 
tion to  the  unlucky  Algerian  conquest ;  and  spontaneously  to  put 
an  end  to  the  dangers  that  grow  out  of  the  Plight  of  Search."  ^ 
When  the  revolution  of  1848  came,  Bastiat  was  more  pressing 
than  ever.  France  could  not  be  the  first  to  disarm ;  and  if  she 
did  disarm,  she  would  be  drawn  into  war.  England,  by  her 
favored  position,  was  alone  able  to  set  the  example.  If  she  could 
only  understand  all  this  and  act  upon  it,  "  she  would  save  the 
future  of  Europe."  Bastiat,  however,  was  not  long  in  awakening 
to  the  fact  that  not  Protection  but  Socialism  was  now  the  foe  that 
menaced  France.  He  turned  round  with  admirable  versatility, 
and  brought  to  bear  on  the  new  monster  the  same  keen  and  patient 
scrutiny,  the  same  skilful  dexterity  in  reasoning  and  illustration, 
which  had  done  such  good  service  against  the  more  venerable 
heresy.  The  pamphlets  which  he  wrote  between  1848  and  1850 
contain  by  much  the  most  penetrating  and  effective  examination 
that  the  great  Socialist  writers  in  France  have  ever  received. 

This  memorable  year  was  an  unfavorable  moment  for  Cobden's 
projects,  but  the  happy  circumstance  that  Great  Britain  alone 
passed  through  the  political  cyclone  without  auything  more  for- 
midable tha,n  Mr.  Smith  O'Brien's  insurrection  in  Ireland,  and 
the  harmless  explosion  of  Chartism  on  Kennington  Common,  was 
too  remarkable  for  men  not  to  seek  to  explain  it.  The  explana- 
tion that  commended  itself  to  most  observers  was  that  Free  Trade 
had  both  mitigated  the  pressure  of  those  economic  evils  which 
had  provoked  violent  risings  in  other  countries,  and  that,  besides 
this,  it  had  removed  from  the  minds  of  the  English  workmen  the 
sense  that  the  government  was  oppressive,  unjust,  or  indifferent 
to  their  well-being.  "  My  belief  is,"  said  Sir  Eobert  Peel  in  a 
powerful  speech  which  he  made  the  following  year,  vindicating 
his  commercial  policy,  "  that  you  have  gained  the  confidence  and 
good  will  of  a  powerful  class  in  this  country  by  parting  with  that 
which  was  thought  to  be  directly  for  the  benefit  of  the  landed 
interest.  I  think  it  was  that  confidence  in  the  generosity  and 
justice  of  Parliament,  which  in  no  small  degree  enabled  you  to 
pass  triumphantly  through  the  storm  that  convulsed  other  coun- 
tries during  the  year  1848."  ^ 

1  (Euv.  i.  167-170. 

2  July  6,  1849.  This  comprehensive  defence  of  Free  Trade  is  well  worth  read- 
ing at  the  present  day,  when  the  same  fallacies  which  Peel  then  exposed  have  come 
to  life  again. 


iET.  44.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  321 

The  Protectionist  party  had  not  yet  accepted  defeat,  nor  did  they 
finally  accept  it  until  they  came  into  power  in  1852.  All  through 
the  year  that  intervened  they  turned  nearl}^  every  debate  into  a 
Protectionist  debate.  After  Lord  George  Bentinck's  death  in  the 
autumn  of  1848,  they  were  led  in  the  House  of  Commons  by  Mr. 
Disraeli,  whose  persistent  and  audacious  patience  was  inspired  by 
the  seeming  confidence  that  a  Protectionist  reaction  was  inevitable. 
The  reaction  never  came.  The  Navigation  Laws,  and  protection  (y' 
on  West  Indian  Sugar,  followed  the  Corn  Law.  Free  trade  in 
corn  was  only  the  prelude  to  free  trade  in  sugar  and  free  trade  in 
ships.  P)ut  the  interests  died  hard.^  Even  the  landlords  made  yj 
tenacious  efforts  to  get  back,  in  the  shape  of  specious  readjust- 
ments of  rates  and  taxes^  something  of  what  they  believed  that 
they  were  going  to  lose  on  their  rents.  Cobden  remained  in  the 
forefront  of  this  long  controversy,  though  he  was  no  longer  one  of 
the  leaders  of  a  forlorn  hope. 

The  Irish  famine  and  the  Irish  insurrection  forced  the  minds 
of  politicians  of  every  color  to  the  tormenting  problem  to  which 
Cobden  had  paid  such  profound  attention  on  his  first  entry  into 
public  life.  National  Education,  another  of  the  sincerest  inter- 
ests of  his  earlier  days,  once  more  engaged  him,  and  he  found 
himself,  as  he  had  already  done  by  his  vote  on  the  Maynooth 
grant,  in  antagonism  to  a  large  section  of  nonconformist  politi- 
cians for  whom  in  every  other  matter  he  had  the  warmest  admira- 
tion. The  following  extracts  from  his  correspondence  show  how 
he  viewed  these  and  other  less  important  topics,  as  they  came 
before  him. 

'' London,  Feh.  22,  1848.  {To  Mrs.  Cohden) —ThQUQ  seems  to 
t3e  a  terrible  storm  brewing  against  the  Whig  budget.  Unfortu- 
nately the  outcry  is  rather  against  the  mode  of  raising  the  money 
than  the  mode  of  expending  it,  and  I  do  not  sympathize  with 
those  who  advocate  armaments  and  then  grumble  at  the  cost. 
For  my  part  I  would  make  the  influential  classes  pay  the  money, 
and  then  they  will  be  more  careful  in  the  expenditure.  I  get  a 
good  many  letters  of  support  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  and 
some  poetry,  as  you  will  see." 

"  Feb.  24.  —  Nothing  is  being  talked  about  to-day  but  the 
^meutes  in  Paris.  From  the  last  accounts  it  seems  that  Louis 
Philippe  has  been  obliged  to  give  way  and  change  his  minist-y, 
owing  to  the  troops  and  the  national  guards  having  shown  signs 
pf  fraternizing  with  the  people.  By  and  by  governments  will 
discover  that  it  is  no  use  to  keep  large  standing  armies,  as  they  . 
cannot  depend  on  them  at  a  pinch.  You  are  right  in  saying  that  y/ 
the  income  tax  has  brought  people  to  their  senses.     It  is  disgust- 

1  The  Sugar  Duties  Bill  became  law  in  1848,  but  the  Navigation  Act  was  not 
passed  until  the  summer  of  1849. 

21 


322  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1848. 

ing  to  see  the  same  men  who  clamored  for  armaments,  now  re- 
fusing to  pay  for  them." 

"  London,  Feb.  29.  {To  George  Combe)  — These  are  stirring  events 
in  France.  I  am  most  anxious  about  our  neutrality  in  the  squab- 
bles which  will  ensue  on  the  Continent.  I  dread  the  revival  of 
the  Treaty  of  Vienna  by  our  red-tapists,  should  France  reach  to 
the  Ehine  or  come  in  collision  with  Austria  or  Eussia.  Besides, 
there  is  a  great  horror  at  the  present  changes  in  the  minds  of  our 
Court  and  aristocracy.  There  will  be  a  natural  repugnance  on 
the  part  of  our  Government,  composed  as  it  is  entirely  of  the 
aristocracy,  to  go  on  cordially  with  a  Eepublic,  and  it  will  be 
easy  to  find  points  of  disagreement,  when  the  will  is  ready  for  a 
quarrel.  I  know  that  the  tone  of  the  clubs  and  coteries  of  London 
is  decidedly  hostile,  and  there  is  an  expectation  in  the  same 
quarters  that  we  shall  have  a  war.  It  is  striking  to  observe  how 
little  the  views  and  feelings  of  the  dominant  class  are  in  unison 
with  those  of  the  people  at  large.  I  agree  with  you  that  the 
republican  form  of  government  will  put  France  to  a  too  severe 
test.  Yet  it  is  difficult  to  see  what  other  form  will  suit  it.  The 
people  are  too  clever  and  active  to  submit  to  a  despotism.  All 
the  props  of  a  Monarchy,  such  as  an  aristocracy  and  State  Church, 
are  gone.  After  all  a  Eepublic  is  more  in  harmony  than  any 
other  form  with  the  manners  of  the  people,  for  there  is  a  strong 
passion  for  social  equality  in  France.  However,  the  duty  of  every 
man  in  England  is  to  raise  the  cry  for  neutrality."  ^ 

"  March  8.  {To  Mrs.  Cobden)  — We  are  a  little  anxious  up  here 
lest  there  should  be  riots  in  the  north.  We  hear  bad  accounts 
from  Glasgow,  but  I  suppose  they  are  exaggerated.  I  hope  we 
shall  have  no  imitations  of  the  French  fashions  in  this  respect." 

"March  10.  (  „  ) — We  were  very  late  in  the  House  again 
last  night.  Disraeli  was  very  amusing  for  two  hours,  talking 
about  everything  but  the  question.^  He  made  poor  McGregor 
a  most  ridiculous  figure.  The  Whigs  are  getting  hold  of  our 
friends." 

"  London,  March  14  ( „  )  —  On  getting  back  yesterday  I 
found  such  a  mass  of  letters  that,  what  with  them  and  the  com- 
mittee I  had  to  attend,  and  callers,  and  my  speech  last  evening, 

^  After  the  Revolution  became  Socialistic,  Peel  said  the  same  : — "I  believe  it 
to  be  essential  to  the  peace  of  the  world  and  to  the  stability  of  government,  that 
the  experiment  now  making  in  France  shall  have  a  fair  trial  without  being  embar- 
rassed or  obstructed  by  extrinsic  intervention.  Let  us  wait  for  the  results  of  thi^ 
experiment.  Let  us  calmly  contemplate  whether  it  is  possible  that  executive  gov- 
ernments can  be  great  manufacturers,  whether  it  can  be  possible  for  them  to  force 
capital  to  employ  industry,"  &c.  — Sir  Robert  Peel,  April  18. 

2  Among  other  points  he  laughed  at  Cobden  and  Mr.  Bright  as  representatives 
of  Peace  and  Plenty  in  the  face  of  a  starving  people  and  a  world  in  arms.  He  also 
declared  himself  a  "  Free-Trader,  not  a  freebooter  of  the  Manchester  school." 


Mt.  44.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  323 

I  thought  you  would  excuse  my  writing  to  you.  I  am  more 
harassed  than  ever.  The  committees  are  very  important  (I  mean 
upon  army,  navy,  and  ordnance  expenditure,^  and  upon  the  Bank 
of  England),  and  occupy  my  time  more  than  the  House.  I  gave 
them  some  home  truths  last  evening,  but  we  were  in  a  poor 
minority .2  The  Ministers  frightened  our  friends  about  a  resigna- 
tion.     Nobody  did   more   to   canvass   for   help   for  them   than 

.     He  is  far  more  to  be  blamed  than  Gibson,  who  is 

thoroughly  with  us  in  heart,  and  only  votes  with  the  Government 
because  he  is  one  of  them.  The  electors  ought  to  make  allowance 
for  him.  He  is  a  very  good  fellow,  and  it  is  a  great  pity  that  he 
ever  joined  the  Whigs.  There  are  many  men  on  our  side  upon 
whom  I  relied,  who  went  over  to  the  Government,  very  much  to 
my  disgust.  There  are  uncommonly  few  to  be  trusted  in  this 
atmosphere.  Don't  be  alarmed.  I  am  not  going  to  set  up  any 
new  League.     It  is  a  mistake  of  the  newspapers." 

"March  18.  (  „  ) — We  have  had  incessant  rain  here  for 
several  days,  and  I  have  been  thinking  with  some  apprehension 
of  its  effects  upon  the  grain  in  the  ground,  and  upon  the  opera- 
tions of  the  farmers  in  getting  in  their  seed.  To-day,  however,  it 
is  a  fine  clear  day,  and  I  am  going  with  Porter  ^  at  four  o'clock 
down  to  Wimbledon  to  stay  till  Monday.  This  week's  work  has 
nearly  knocked  me  up.  They  talk  of  a  ten  hours  bill  in  Paris. 
I  wish  we  had  a  twelve  hours  bill,  for  I  am  at  it  from  nine  in  the 
morning  till  midnight.  We  had  a  debate  last  evening  upon  the 
question  of  applying  the  income  tax  to  Ireland,  but  I  was  shut 
out  of  the  division,  the  door  being  closed  in  my  face  just  as  I  was 
entering,  otherwise  I  should  have  voted  for  the  measure.*  The 
news  from  Paris  is  more  and  more  exciting.  There  seems  to  be 
a  sort  of  reaction  of  the  moderate  party  against  the  violent  men. 
The  Bank  of  France  has  suspended  specie  payments,  which  will 
lead  to  much  mischief  and  confusion.  I  fear  we  have  not  seen 
the  worst." 

'^London,  March  21.  (  „  )  —  I  have  sent  you  a  Times  con- 
taining a  report  of  my  speech  last  night.  Be  good  enough  to 
return  it  to  me  after  you  have  read  it,  as  T  shall  want  to  correct 
it  for  Hansard,  and  have  not  another  copy.     We  were  in  a  miser- 

1  As  a  means  of  conciliating  public  opinion,  which  was  at  this  time  in  one  of  its 

cold  and  thrifty  fits,  Sir  Charles  Wood,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  moved  for 

a  Select  and  Secret  Committee  to  inquire  into  the  expenditure  on  army,  navy,  and 

» ordnance.     Cobden  was  an  assiduous  attendant,  with  his  usual  anxiety  to  hear  all 

the  facts  of  the  case. 

^  On  Mr.  Hume's  motion  for  altering  the  period  of  renewed  income-tax  from 
three  years  to  one.     The  "poor  minority"  was  138  against  363. 

3  The  author  of  Porter's  Progress  of  the  Nation. 

*  Moved  by  Sir  B.  Hall,  opposed  by  the  Government,  and  rejected  by  218 
to  138. 


324  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1848. 

able  minority .1  Tlie  blue  jackets  and  red  coats  were  down  upon 
me  fiercely,  as  if  I  had  been  attacking  them  sword  in  hand.  It 
reminded  me  of  the  old  times  when  we  were  just  beginning  the 
Anti-C.orn-Law  battle  in  the  House.  We  get  astounding  news 
from  the  Continent ;  a  fresh  revolution  or  a  dethronement  by  every 
post." 

"  March  27.  (  „  )  — You  need  not  be  alarmed  about  my 
turning  up  right  in  the  end,  but  at  the  present  time  I  am  not 
very  fashionable  in  aristocratic  circles.  However,  I  have  caught 
Admiral  Dundas  in  a  trap.  You  may  remember  that  he  contra- 
dicted me  about  my  fact  of  a  large  ship  lying  at  anchor  so  long  at 
Malta.  Well,  a  person  has  called  upon  me,  and  given  me  the 
minute  particulars  and  dates  of  the  times  which  all  the  admirals 
have  been  lying  in  Malta  harbor  during  the  last  twelve  years, 
extracted  by  him  from  the  ship  logs  which  are  lying  at  Somerset 
House.  Having  got  the  particulars,  I  have  given  notice  to 
Admiral  Dundas  tliat  I  shall  move  in  the  House  for  the  official 
return  of  them  to  be  extracted  from  the  ships'  logs.  He  says  I 
sha'n't  have  the  returns,  but  he  can't  deny  that  I  have  got  them. 
I  shall  make  a  stir  in  the  House,  and  turn  the  tables  upon  him. 
Whilst  I  was  talking  to  the  Admiral  about  it  to-day  in  the  com- 
mittee room,  Molesworth  entered  into  the  altercation  with  so 
much  warmth  that  I  thought  tliere  would  have  been  an  affair 
between  them.  The  best  of  it  all  is,  that  I  find  the  present 
Admiral  in  the  Mediterranean  (Sir  William  Parker),  who  sent 
such  an  insolent  message  to  me  about  my  speech  at  Manchester, 
which  was  read  by  Dundas  in  the  House,  has  been  lying  himself 
for  seven  months  and  two  days  in  Malta  harbor  with  nearly  1000 
hands,  without  ever  stirring  out  of  port." 

"  London,  April  10.  (  „  )  — We  have  been  all  in  excitement 
here  with  the  Chartist  meeting  at  Kennington  Common,  which 
after  all  has  gone  off  very  quietly,  and  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  so  numerously  attended  as  was  expected.  In  my  opinion 
the  Government  and  the  newspapers  have  made  far  too  much 
fuss  about  it.  From  all  that  I  can  learn  there  were  not  so  many 
as  40,000  persons  present,  and  they  dispersed  quietly.  I  do  not 
think  I  shall  be  able  to  go  north  with  you  before  next  Monday 
week." 

"  April  15.    (     „     )  — You  will  have  seen  by  the  paper  what  a 
mess  Feargus  O'Connor  has  made  of  the  Chartist  petition.     The 
poor  dupes  who  have  followed  him  are  quite   disheartened  and. 
disgusted,  and  ought  to  be  so.    They  are  now  much  more  disposed 
to  go  along  with  the  middle  class." 

"  May  13.    (     „    )  — You  will  hear  that  all  the  papers  are  down 

1  Debate  on  Navy  estimates  ;  amendment  for  reduction  of  the  force,  defeated  by 
347  to  328. 


JEt.  44.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  325 

upon  me  again.  In  making  a  few  remarks  about  the  Alien  Bill, 
I  said  that  the  '  best  way  to  repel  republicanism  was  to  curtail 
some  of  the  barbarous  splendor  of  the  Monarchy  which  went  to 
the  aggrandizement  of  the  aristocracy.'  My  few  words  drew  up 
Lord  John  as  usual,  and  he  was  followed  by  Bright  with  a  capital 
speech." 

"  Manchester,  April  24.     (To  G.  Combe.)  —  You  know  how  cor-     ^^ 
dially  I  agree  with  you  upon  the  subject  of  Education.     But  I  ^ 
confess  I  see  no  chance  of  incorporating  it  in  any  new  movement 
for  an  extension  of  the  suffrage.     The  main  strength  of  any  such 
movement  must  be  in  the  Liberal  ranks  of  the  middle  class,  and 
they  are  almost  exclusively  filled  by  Dissenters.     To  attempt  to 
raise  the  question  of  National  Education  amongst  them  at  the 
present  moment,  would  be  to  throw  a  bombshell  into  their  ranks 
to  disperse  them.     In  my  opinion  every  extension  of  popular 
rights  will  bring  us  nearer  to  a  plan  of  National  Education,  be- 
cause it  will  give  the  poor  a  stronger  motive  to  educate  their 
children,  and  at  the  same  time  a  greater  power  to  carry  the  motive      y 
into  practice.     The  real  obstacle  to  a  system  of  National  Educa-    ^ 
tion  has  been  in  my  opinion  the  State  Church,  and  although  the 
Dissenters  are  for  the  moment  in  a  false  position,  they  will,  I 
hope,  with  time  come  right." 

''May  15.     (     „     ) — There  is  no  active  feeling  at  present  in 
favor  of  National  Education.     The  Dissenters,  at  least  Baines's 
section,  who  have  been  the  only  movement  party  since  the  League 
was  dissolved,  have  rather  turned  popular  opinion  against  it.^     I 
need  not  say  how  completely  I  agree  with  you  that  education 
alone  can  insure  good  self-government.     Don't  suppose  that  I  am 
changed,  or  that  I  intend  to  shirk  the  question.     Above  all,  don't 
suspect  that  sitting  for  Yorkshire  would  shut  my  mouth.    I  made 
up  my  mind,  on  returning  from  the   Continent,  that  the   best 
chance  I  could  give  to  our  dissenting  friends  was  to  give  them 
time  to  cool  after  the  excitement  of  the  late  Opposition  to  the 
Government  measure,  and  therefore  I  have  avoided  throwing  the 
topic  in  their  faces.     But  I  do  not  intend  to  preserve  my  silence  y 
much  longer.    If  I  take  a  part  in  a  new  reform  movement,  I  shall 
do  my  best  to  connect  the  Education  question  with  it,  not  as  a  \/ 
part  of  the  new  Eeform  act,  but  by  proclaiming  my  own  convic- 
tions that  it  is  by  a  national  system  of  education  alone  that  peo- . 
pie  can  acquire  or  retain  knowledge  enough  for  self-government.  ^ 
In  our  reform  movement,  sectarianism  will  not  be  predominant." 

1  See  above,  p.  201.  "I  confess,"  said  Cobden,  in  1851,  "that  for  fifteen 
years  my  hopes  of  success  in  establishing  a  system  of  National  Education,  have 
always  been  associated  with  the  idea  of  coupling  the  education  of  the  country  with 
the  religious  communities  which  exist."  But  he  found  religious  discordances  too 
violent,  and  he  took  refuge,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  in  the  secular  system. 


326  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1848. 

"  London,  July  23.  (  „  )  — What  a  wretched  session  has  this 
been  !  It  ought  to  be  expunged  from  the  minutes  of  Parliament. 
Three  Coercion  Bills  for  Ireland  and  the  rest  talk,  talk,  talk. 
There  never  was  a  Parliament  in  which  so  much  power  for  good 
or  evil  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Minister  as  in  this.  Lord  John 
could  have  commanded  a  majority  for  any  judicious  Liberal  meas- 
ures by  the  aid  of  Peel,  who  was  bound  to  support  him,  and  the 
Liberals,  who  were  eager  to  be  led  forward.  But  he  has  allowed 
himself  to  be  baffled,  bullied,  and  obstructed  by  Lord  George  Ben- 
tinck  and  the  Protectionists,  who  have  been  so  far  encouraged  by 
their  success  in  Sugar  and  the  Navigation  Laws  that  I  expect  they 
will  be  quite  ready  to  begin  their  reaction  on  Corn  next  session, 
and  we  may  have  to  fight  the  Free  Trade  battle  over  again.  The 
feebleness  and  incapacity  of  the  Whigs  are  hardly  sufficient  to 
account  for  their  failures  as  administrators.  The  fact  is  they  are 
the  allies  of  the  aristocracy  rather  than  of  the  people,  and  they 
fight  their  opponents  with  gloves,  not  meaning  to  hurt  them. 
They  are  buffers  placed  between  the  people  and  the  privileged 
classes,  to  deaden  the  shock  when  they  are  brought  into  col- 
lision." 

"  May  15.  {To  Mr.  W.  B.  Chreg)  —  No  apology  is,  I  assure  you, 
necessary  for  your  frank  and  friendly  letter.  There  is  not  much 
difference  in  our  views  as  to  what  is  most  wanted  for  the  country. 
The  only  great  point  upon  which  we  do  not  agree  is  as  to  the 
means.  What  we  want  before  all  things  is  a  bold  retrenchment 
of  expenditure.  I  may  take  a  too  one-sided  view  of  the  matter, 
but  I  consider  nine  tentlis  of  all  our  future  dangers  to  be  financial, 
and  when  I  came  home  from  the  Continent,  it  was  with  a  deter- 
mination to  go  on  with  fiscal  reform  and  economy  as  a  sequence 
to  Free  Trade.  I  urged  this  line  upon  our  friend  James  Wilson 
(who,  by  the  way,  has  committed  political  suicide),  and  others, 
and  I  did  not  hesitate-  to  say  up  to  within  the  last  three  months 
that  I  would  take  no  active  part  in  agitating  for  organic  questions. 
But  when  the  series  of  political  revolutions  broke  out  on  the  Con- 
tinent, all  men's  minds  in  England  were  suddenly  turned  to  simi- 
lar topics ;  and  the  political  atmosphere  became  so  charged  with 
the  electric  current,  that  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  avoid  dis- 
cussing organic  questions.  But  I  had  no  share  in  forcing  forward 
the  subject.  I  abstained  from  assisting  in  forming  a  party  in  the 
House  for  organic  reforms,  though  I  was  much  urged  by  a  great 
number  of  members  to  head -such  a  party." 

"  July  21.  {To  H.  Ashiuorth)  —  No  man  can  defend  or  palliate 
such  conduct  as  that  of  Smith  O'Brien  and  his  confederates.  It 
would  be  a  mercy  to  shut  them  up  in  a  lunatic  asylum.  They  are 
not  seeking  a  repeal  of  the  legislative  union,  but  the  establishment 
of  a  Eepublic,  or  probably  the  restoration  of  the  Kings  of  Munster 


JEt.  44.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  327 

and  Connaught !  But  the  sad  side  of  the  picture  is  in  the  fact 
that  we  are  doing  nothing  to  satisfy  the  moderate  party  in  Ire- 
land, nothing  which  strengthens  the  hands  even  of  John  O'Con- 
nell  and  the  priest  party,  who  are  opposed  to  the  '  red  republicans ' 
of  the  Dublin  clubs.  There  seems  to  be  a  strong  impression  here 
that  this  time  there  is  to  be  a  rebellion  in  Ireland.  But  I  confess 
I  have  ceased  to  fear  or  hope  anything  from  that  country.  Its 
utter  helplessness  to  do  anything  for  itself  is  our  great  difficulty. 
You  can't  find  three  Irishmen  who  will  co-operate  together  for 
any  rational  object.^' 

''London,  August  28.  {To  George  Combe)  —  I  would  have  an- 
swered your  first  letter  from  Ireland,  but  did  not  know  how  soon 
you  were  going  back  again  to  Edinburgh.  With  respect  to  the 
plan  for  holding  sectional  meetings'  of  the  House  of  Commons  in 
Dublin,  Edinburgh,  and  London  for  local  purposes,  it  is  too  fanci- 
ful for  my  practical  taste.  I  do  not  think  that  such  a  scheme  will 
ever  seriously  engage  the  public  attention.  If  local  business  be 
ever  got  rid  of  by  the  House  of  Commons,  it  should  be  transferred 
as  much  as  possible  to  County  courts.  There  is  very  little  advan- 
tage for  instance  in  carrying  a  road  bill  from  Eoss-shire  to  Edin- 
burgh instead  of  to  London,  or  from  Galway  to  Dublin  instead  of 
to  London.  The  private  or  local  business  occupies  much  less  of 
the  time  of  the  House  of  Commons  than  many  people  suppose. 
An  hour  on  an  average  at  the  opening  of  the  sittings  daily  suf- 
fices ;  the  rest  is  all  done  in  select  committees,  and  a  great  deal  of 
it  by  Mr.  Green  and  Mr.  Bernal,  Chairmen  of  Committees,  who, 
I  suspect,  would  find  it  no  advantage  in  Irish  matters  to  be  in 
Dublin.  Bad  as  the  system  is  of  bringing  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons all  the  local  business  of  the  kingdom,  I  am  sure  it  would 
not  mend  the  matter  to  split  us  into  three  sections,  as  your  friends 
propose,  for  two  or  three  months,  and  then  to  reunite  in  London 
for  imperial  purposes.     We  should  be  in  perpetual  session. 

"  Whilst  we  are  constitution-tinkering,  let  me  give  you  my  plan. 
Each  county  to  have  its  assembly  elected  by  tlie  people,  to  do  the 
work  which  the  unpaid  magistrates  and  lords-lieutenant  now  do, 
and  also  much  of  the  local  business  which  now  comes  l)efore 
Parliament.  The  head  of  this  body,  or  rather  the  head  of  each 
county,  to  be  the  executive  chief,  partaking  of  the  character  of 
prefect,  or  governor  of  a  state  in  the  United  States.  By  and  by, 
when  you  require  to  change  the  constitution  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  these  county  legislators  may  each  elect  two  senators  to  an 
upper  chamber  or  senate. 

"  But  the  question  is  about  Ireland.  Why  do  your  friends 
amuse  one  another  with  sjuch  bubble-blowing  ?  The  real  diffi- 
culty in  Ireland  is  the  character  and  condition  socially  and  morally 
of  the  people,  from  tlie  peer  to  the  Connaught  peasant.     It  is  not 


328  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1848. 

by  forms  of  legislation  or  the  locality  of  parliaments,  but  by  a 
change  and  improvement  of  the  population,  that  Ireland  is  to 
have  a  start  in  the  career  of  civilization  and  self-government. 
Now  instead  of  phantom-hunting,  why  don't  your  friends  (if  they 
are  worthy  of  being  your  friends)  tell  the  truth  to  their  country- 
men, and  teach  them  their  duties  as  well  as  their  rights  ?  And 
let  them  begin  by  showing  that  they  understand  their  own  duties 
and  act  up  to  them.  The  most  discouraging  thing  to  an  English 
Member  of  Parliament  who  wishes  to  do  well  to  Ireland,  is  the 
quality  of  the  men  sent  to  represent  it  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
Hardly  a  man  of  business  amongst  them  ;  and  not  three  who  are 
prepared  cordially  to  co-operate  together  for  any  one  common 
object.  How  would  it  mend  matters  if  such  men  were  sitting  in 
Dublin  instead  of  London  ?  But  the  subject  is  boundless  and 
hopeless,  and  I  must  not  attempt  to  discuss  it  in  a  note." 

"  Hayling  Island,  Hants,  Oct.  4.  (  „  )  —  Many  thanks  for 
your  valuable  letters  upon  Ireland  and  Germany.  I  really  feel 
much  indebted  for  your  taking  all  these  pains  for  my  instruc- 
tion. 

"  Leaving  Germany  —  upon  which  I  do  not  presume  to  offer 
an  opinion  beside  yours  —  I  do  claim  for  myself  the  justice  of 
having  foreseen  the  danger  in  Ireland,  or  rather  seen  it  —  for  its 
condition  has  little  altered  since  I  first  began  to  reason.  When 
about  fourteen  years  ago  I  first  found  leisure  from  my  private 
affairs  to  think  about  public  business,  I  summed  up  my  views  of 
English  politics  in  a  pamphlet  which  contained  many  crude  de- 
tails (which  I  should  not  now  print),  but  upon  whose  three  broad 
propositions  I  have  never  changed  my  opinion.  They  were  — 
First,  that  the  great  curse  of  our  policy  has  been  our  love  of  inter- 
vention in  foreign  politics  ;  secondly,  that  our  greatest  home  diffi- 
culty is  Ireland ;  and  thirdly,  that  the  United  States  is  the  great 
economical  rival  which  will  rule  the  destiny  of  England. 

"  It  may  appear  strange  that  a  man  who  had  thought  much  about 
Ireland,  and  who  had  frequently  been  in  that  country  (I  had  a 
cousin,  a  rector  of  the  Church  of  England  in  Tipperary),  should 
have  been  seven  years  in  Parliament  and  not  have  spoken  upon 
Irish  questions.  I  will  tell  you  the  reason.  I  found  the  popu- 
lace of  Ireland  represented  in  the  House  by  a  body  of  men,  with 
O'Connell  at  their  head,  with  whom  I  could  feel  no  more  sympa- 
thy or  identity  than  with  people  whose  language  I  did  not  under- 
stand. In  fact,  mm'-ally  I  felt  a  complete  antagonism  and 
repulsion  towards  them.  O'Connell  always  treated  me  with 
friendly  attention,  but  I  never  shook  hands  with  him  or  faced  his 
smile  without  a  feeling  of  insecurity ;  and  as  for  trusting  him  on 
any  public  question  where  his  vanity  or  passions  might  interpose, 
I  should  have  as  soon  thought  of  an  alliance  with  an  Ashantee 


Mt.  44.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  329 

chief.^  I  found  that  that  which  I  regarded  as  the  great  Irish 
grievance  —  the  Protestant  Church  Establishment  —  was  never 
mentioned  by  tlie  Irish  Liberal  members.  Their  Eepeal  cry  was 
evidently  an  empty  sound.  y 

"  The  great  obstacle  to  all  progress  both  in  Ireland  and  in .  y^ 
England  is  the  landlord  spirit,  which  is  dominant  in  political  and  ^ 
social  life.  It  is  this  spirit  which  prevents  our  dealing  with  the 
question  of  the  tenure  of  land.  The  feudal  system,  as  now  main- 
tained in  Ireland,  is  totally  nnsuited  to  the  state  of  the  country. 
In  fact,  the  feudal  policy  is  not  carried  out,  for  that  would  imply 
a  responsibility  on  the  part  of  the  proprietor  to  keep  and  employ 
the  people,  whereas  he  is  possibly  living  in  Paris,  whilst  his  agent 
is  driving  the  peasantry  from  his  estate  and  perhaps  burning 
their  cabins.  What  is  wanting  is  a  tribunal  or  legislature  be- 
fore which  the  case  of  Ireland  may  be  pleaded,  where  the  landlord 
spirit  (excuse  the  repetition  of  the  word)  is  not  supreme.  This 
is  not  to  be  found  in  our  House  of  Commons.  You  would  be 
astonished  if  behind  the  scenes  in  the  Committees,  and  in  the  con- 
fidence of  those  men  who  frame  bills  for  Parliament,  to  observe 
how  vigilant  the  spirit  of  landlordism  is  in  guarding  its  privi- 
leges, and  how  much  the  legislator  who  would  hope  to  carry  a 
measure  through  both  Houses,  is  obliged  to  consult  its  sovereign 
will  and  pleasure.  Hence  the  difficulty  of  dealing  with  game 
laws,  copyholds,  and  such  small  matters,  which  grow  into  things 
of  mighty  import  in  the  House  of  Commons,  whilst  the  law  of 
primogeniture  is  a  sort  of  eleventh  commandment  in  the  eyes 
of  our  legislators. 

"  I  think  I  know  what  is  wanted  in  Ireland :  a  redistribution 
of  land,  as  the  only  means  of  multiplying  men  of  property.  If  I 
had  absolute  power  I  would  instantly  issue  an  edict  applying  the 
law  of  succession  as  it  exists  in  France  to  the  land  of  Ireland. 
There  should  be  no  more  absentee  proprietors  drawing  large 
rentals  from  Ireland,  if  I  could  prevent  it.  I  would  so  divide  the 
property  as  to  render  it  necessary  to  live  upon  the  spot  to  look 
after  it.  But  you  can  do  nothing  effectual  in  that  direction  with 
our  Houses,  and  therefore  I  am  an  advocate  for  letting  in  the 
householders  as  voters,  so  as  to  take  away  the  domination  of  the 
squires.  But  I  will  do  all  in  my  power  in  the  mean  time  to  give 
a  chance  to  Ireland,  and  I  cordially  agree  with  your  views  upon 
the  policy  that  ought  to  be  pursued  towards  it." 

"  London,  Oct.  28.  (  „  )  —  I  have  to  thank  you  for  the  Scots- 
man containing  the  whole  of  your  observations  upon  the  state  of 
Ireland,  in  every  syllable  of  which  I  agree  with  you.  But  excuse 
me  if  I  say  I  miss  in  your  articles,  as  in  all  other  dissertations 

1  Cobden  is  here  unjust  to  O'Connell.  He  opposed  the  Corn  Bill  of  1815,  and 
was  true  to  the  League  in  the  fight  from  1838  to  1846. 


330  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1848. 

upon  Ireland,  a  specific  plan  —  I  mean  such  a  remedial  scheme  as 
might  be  embodied  in  an  Act  of  Parliament.  And  it  must  be  so 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  for  the  ills  of  Ireland  are  so  com- 
plex, and  its  diseases  so  decidedly  chronic,  that  no  single  remedy 
could  possibly  cure  them.  Indeed,  if  we  were  to  apply  a  thousand 
remedies,  the  existing  generation  could  hardly  hope  to  live  to  see 
any  great  change  in  the  condition  of  the  Irish  people ;  and  this  is 
probably  one  reason  why  politicians  and  ministers  of  the  day  do 
not  commit  their  fortunes  to  the  cause  of  justice  to  Ireland. 

"  I  have  but  one  plan,  but  I  don't  know  how  to  enforce  it.  Cut 
up  the  land  into  small  properties.  Let  there  be  no  estates  so 
large  as  to  favor  absenteeism,  even  from  the  parish.  How  is  this 
to  be  done,  with  feudalism  still  in  the  ascendant  in  Parliament 
\  and  in  the  Cabinet  ?  Pirn  is  quite  right  when  he  draws  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  case  of  Ireland,  where  the  conquerors  have 
not  amalgamated  with  the  conquered,  and  that  of  otlier  countries, 
where  the  victors  and  vanquished  have  been  invariably  blended. 
For  we  are  all  conquered  nations  —  some  of  us  have  been  so 
repeatedly  —  but  all,  with  the  exception  of  Ireland,  have  absorbed 
their  conquerors. 

"  Almost  every  crime  and  outrage  in  Ireland  is  connected  with 
the  occupation  or  ownership  of  land ;  and  yet  the  Irish  are  not 
naturally  an  agricultural  people,  for  they  alone,  of  all  the  European 
emigrants  who  arrive  in  the  United  States,  linger  about  the  towns, 
and  hesitate  to  avail  themselves  of  the  tempting  advantages  of 
the  rural  districts  in  the  interior.  But  in  Ireland,  at  least  the 
south  and  west,  there  is  no  property  but  the  soil,  and  no  labor  but 
upon  the  land,  and  you  cannot  reach  the  population  in  their 
material  or  moral  condition  but  through  the  proprietorship  of  the 
land.  Therefore,  if  I  had  the  power,  I  would  always  make  the 
proprietors  of  the  soil  resident,  by  breaking  up  the  large  proper- 
\y    ties.     In  other  words,  I  would  give  Ireland  to  the  Irish. 

"  I  used  to  think  that  the  Protestant  Church  was  the  crying 
evil  in  Ireland ;  and  so  it  would  be,  if  the  Catholics  of  that  coun- 
try were  Englishmen  or  Scots.  But  as  an  economical  evil,  it  can 
hardly  be  said  to  affect  the  material  condition  of  the  people,  see- 
ing that  the  titheowners  live  in  the  parish,  and  are  in  many  cases 
almost  the  only  proprietors  who  do  spend  their  income  creditably 
at  home ;  and  as  it  is  not  felt  apparently  as  a  moral  grievance,  I 
do  not  think  that  the  agitation  against  the  Church  Establishment 
would  be  likely  to  contribute  to  the  contentment  of  the  people. 
I  confess  that  the  apathy  of  the  Irish  Catholics  upon  the  subject 
of  the  Protestant  Church  Establishment  in  that  country  excites 
my  surprise,  if  not  my  contempt." 

"Dec.  28.  {To  Mr.  Edward  Baines)  —  I  doubt  the  utility  of 
your  recurring  to  the  Education  question.  My  views  have  un- 
V/ 


^T.44.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  331 

dergone  no  change  for  twenty  years  on  the  subject,  excepting  that 
they  are  infinitely  strengthened,  and  I  am  convinced  that  I  am 
as  little  likely  to  convert  you  as  you  me.  Practically  no  good 
could  come  out  of  the  controversy ;  for  we  must  both  admit  that 
the  principle  of  State  Education  is  virtually  settled,  both  here  and 
in  all  civilized  countries.  It  is  not  an  infallible  test  I  admit,  but 
I  don't  think  there  are  two  men  in  the  House  of  Commons  who 
are  opposed  to  the  principle  of  National  Education. 

"  I  did  not  intend  to  touch  upon  a  matter  so  delicate ;  but  yet, 
upon  second  thoughts,  it  is  best  to  be  candid.  My  experience  in 
public  matters  has  long  ago  convinced  me  that  to  form  a  party,  ^ 
or  act  with  a  party,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  avoid  seeking  for 
points  of  collision,  and,  on  the  contrary,  to  endeavor  to  be  silent, 
as  far  as  one  can  be  so  conscientiously,  upon  the  differences  one 
may  see  between  his  own  opinions  and  those  of  his  political  allies. 
Applying  this  to  your  observations  ^  upon  ray  budget,  I  would 
have  laid  on  heavily  in  favor  of  such  parts  as  I  could  agree  with, 
and  would  have  deferred  pointing  out  any  errors  until  I  had  given 
the  common  enemy  time  to  do  that  (I  say  errors,  but  I  do  not 
admit  them  in  this  case).  The  same  remark  applies  to  the  course 
the  Mercury  took  upon  the  redistribution  of  electoral  power,  on 
which  occasion  it  was  to  my  mind  demonstratively  wrong  in 
abandoning  and  turning  against  the  strongest  position  of  the  Ee- 
formers.  I  do  not  press  the  Education  question,  because  I  presume 
your  religious  feelings  were  excited  by  the  course  the  Government 
took  whilst  I  was  on  the  Continent.  But  I  suppose  all  parties 
agree  that  education  is  the  main  cause  of  the  split  amongst  the 
middle-class  Liberals.  Now,  what  I  say  to  you  I  have  always 
preached  to  others.  For  instance,  I  have  been  trying  to  persuade 
everybody  about  the  Daily  Neivs,  as  to  the  impolicy,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  the  injustice,  of  their  gross  attacks  upon  yourself  and 
friends,  and  1  have  used  precisely  the  same  argument  which  I 
now  use  to  you." 

"  Manchester,  Nov.  30.  {To  Mrs.  Cohden.)  —  I  find  our  League 
friends  here  very  lukewarm  about  the  West  Eiding  election.^ 
Many  of  them  declare  they  will  not  vote.  They  seem  quite  out 
of  humor  with  the  religious  intolerance  of  the  Eardley  party.  I 
am  very  much  inclined  to  thinl^:  the  Tories  will  win.  Have  you 
seen  the  news  from  Paris  ?  Lamoriciere,  the  French  Minister  of 
War,  has  proposed  to  the  Assembly  to  reduce  the  army  nearly  one 
half,  and  to  save  170  millions  of  francs.  This,  if  really  carried 
out,  will  make  our  work  safe  in  this  country." 

1  In  the  Leeds  Mercury. 

2  Lord  Morpeth,  Cobden's  colleague  in  the  representation,  now  succeeded  to  the 
earldom  of  Carlisle.  A  contest  took  place,  and  Mr.  Denison,  the  Conservative, 
defeated  Sir  Culling  Eardley. 


332  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1848. 

"  Manchester,  Dec.  8.  (  „  )  —  T  went  down  to  Liverpool  on 
"Wednesday  afternoon,  and  dined  at  Mellor's  with  a  large  party  of 
the  leading  men,  including  Brown  and  Lawrence  Heyworth,  and 
slept  there.  Yesterday  I  met  the  Financial  Reformers  at  their 
Council  Board,  Mr.  Robertson  Gladstone  in  the  chair.  They 
seem  to  be  earnest  men,  but  I  did  not  exactly  see  the  man  capable 
of  directing  so  great  an  undertaking.  They  approved  of  my  plan 
of  a  budget,  and  I  agreed  to  address  a  letter  with  it  to  their  chair- 
man ft)r  publication.  Last  evening  I  met  another  party  of  the 
more  earnest  men  of  the  Reform  Association,  at  Mellor's." 

The  last  extract  refers  to  the  subject  which  Cobden  had  now 
taken  earnestly  in  hand.  As  he  was  always  repeating,  extrav- 
agant and  ill-adjusted  finance  seemed  to  him  the  great  mischief 
of  our  policy.  Apart  from  its  place  in  his  general  scheme,  re- 
trenchment was  Cobden's  device  for  meeting  the  cry  of  the  Pro- 
,  tectionists.  It  was  an  episode  in  the  long  battle  against  the 
y  enemies  of  Free  Trade.  The  landed  interest,  they  cried  out,  was 
ruined  by  rates  and  taxes.  The  implication  was  that  they  could 
not  exist  without  Protection.  That  was  Mr.  Disraeli's  cue  until 
he  became  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  He  made  speech  after 
speech  and  motion  after  motion  to  this  effect.  Cobden  with  equal 
persistency  retorted  that  the  proper  relief  for  agriculture  was  not 
the  imposition-  of  a  burden  upon  the  consumers  of  bread,  but  a 
/  reduction  of  the  common  burdens  of  them  all.  He  had  begun 
his  campaign  in  the  session  of  1848.  The  Government  came  for- 
ward with  a  proposal,  which  was  afterwards  ignominiously  with- 
drawn, for  an  increase  in  the  income  tax.  Cobden  Woke  new 
ground  by  insisting  on  the  superior  expediency  of  direct  over  in- 
direct taxation,  provided  that  a  just  distinction  were  recognized 
between  permanent  and  precarious  incomes.  His  chief  point  was 
that  the  Government  must  either  increase  direct  taxation,  or  else 
reduce  expenditure  ;  and  he  pressed  the  inference  that  expenditure 
\/  must  be  decreased,  and  it  must  be  decreased  by  reduction  in 
armaments. 

Cobden's  contention  cannot  be  said,  to  have  prospered ;  but  the 
debates  show  how  seriously  his  attack  on  expenditure  was  taken 
by  those  who  opposed  him.  Mr.  Disraeli  laughed  at  him  as  the 
successor  of  the  Abb^  St.  Pierre,  Rousseau,  and  Robespierre  in  the 
dreams  of  perpetual  peace,  but  he  recognized  the  possibility  of 
public  opinion  being  brought  round  to  Cobden's  side.  Even  Peel 
thought  it  necessary  formally  to  express  his  dissent  from  Cobden's 
views  on  national  defence.  Fresh  from  his  victorious  onslaught 
upon  the  Corn  Law,  he  was  dreaded  by  the  House  of  Commons 
and  the  old  political  factions,  as  speaking  the  voice  of  an  irresist- 
ible, if  not  an  infallible,  oracle.  The  Government  had  no  root. 
The  Opposition  was  nullified  by  the  internecine  quarrel  between 


iET.  44.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  333 

the  Protectionists  and  the  Peelites.  The  two  parties  in  fact  were 
so  distracted,  so  uncertain  in  principle,  and  so  unstable  in  compo- 
sition, that  they  were  profoundly  afraid  of  the  one  party  which 
knew^  its  own  mind  and  stood  aloof  from  the  conventional  game. 
The  Conservatives  constantly  felt,  or  pretended  to  feel,  an  irrational 
apprehension  that  the  object  of  the  Manchester  school  was,  in  the 
exaggerated  language  of  one  of  them,  to  organize  a  force  that 
should  override  the  legislature  and  dictate  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. The  Financial  Reform  Association  at  Liverpool,  with 
which  Cobden  had  entered  into  relations,  was  expected  to  imitate 
the  redoubtable  achievements  of  the  League.  Similar  associations 
sprang  up  both  in  the  English  and  the  Scotch  capitals,  and  there 
was  on  many  sides  a  stir  and  movement  on  the  subject  which  for 
a  time  promised  substantial  results. 

In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Bright,  Cobden  sketched  an  outline  of  what 
was  called  a  People's  Budget,  already  referred  to  in  his  letter  to 
Mr.  Baines:  — 

"  London,  Nov.  16,  1848.  —  I  have  been  thinking?  and  talkinof 
about  concocting  a  *  national  budget,'  to  serve  for  an  object  for 
financial  reformers  to  work  up  to,  and  to  prevent  their  losing  their 
time  upon  vague  generalities.  The  plan  must  be  one  to  unite  all 
classes  and  interests,  and  to  bring  into  one  agitation  the  counties 
and  the  towns.  I  propose  to  reduce  the  army,  navy,  and  ordnance 
from  18,500,000/.  to  10,000,000/.,  and  thus  save  8,500,000/.  Upon 
the  civil  expenditure  in  all  its  branches,  including  the  cost  of  col- 
lecting revenue,  and  the  management  of  crown  lands,  I  propose  to 
save  1,500,000/.  I  propose  to  lay  a  probate  and  legacy  duty  upon 
real  property,  to  affect  both  entailed  and  unentailed  estates,  by 
which  would  be  got  1,500,000/.  Here  is  11,500,000/.,  to  be  used 
in  reducing  and  abolishing  duties,  which  I  ppi^e^e-  to  .dispase  of 
as  follows  :  —  /y^^ "^      *- 1 B ^ ^-^ 

"  Customs :  //  ^^  '^ -^^^ 

"  Tea,  reduce  duty  to  Is.  per  lb.       ((U  IT  I  V  E  R  S  I  T  Y, 

"  Wood  and  timber,  abolish  duties.  \  /v  oif  k 

"  Butter  and  cheese,  do.  X^^^  ^  '^^OTl^'V^ 

"  Upwards  of  100  smaller  articles  of  the  tariff  tot^^fet^d, 
( I  would  only  leave  about  fifteen  articles  in  the  tariff  paying 
customs  duties.) 
"  Excise : 

"  Malt,  all  duty  abolished. 

"Paper,       do.         do. 

"Soap,         do.         do. 

"Hops,        do.         do. 

"Window  tax,  all  off. 

"  Advertisement  duty,  do. 
"All  these  changes  could  be  effected  with  11,500,000^. 


\/ 


334  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1848. 

"  There  are  other  duties  which  I  should  prefer  to  remove,  instead 
of  one  or  two  of  them,  but  I  have  been  guided  materially  by  a  de- 
sire to  bring  all  interests  to  sympathize  with  the  scheme.  Thus 
the  tea  is  to  catch  the  merchants  and  all  the  old  women  in  the 
country  —  the  wood  and  timber,  the  shipbuilders  —  the  malt  and 
hops,  the  farmers  —  paper  and  soap,  the  Scotch  anti-excise  peo- 
ple —  the  window-tax,  the  shopocracy  of  London,  Bath,  etc.  —  the 
advertisements,  the  press." 

The  scheme  which  Cobden  here  propounds  to  Mr.  Bright  was 
elaborated  in  a  speech  made  at  Liverpool  and  afterwards  set  forth 
in  a  letter  to  the  Financial  Eeform  Association  of  that  town, 
which  led  to  much  discussion,  but  which  for  reasons  that  we  shall 
see  in  the  next  chapter  did  not  become  the  starting-point  of  such 
an  agitation  as  Cobden  promised  himself. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

MISCELLANEOUS   CORRESPONDENCE   ON   SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL 
MOVEMENTS. 

Behind  the  merits  of  a  policy  of  economy  for  its  own  sake,  there 
was  in  the  minds  both  of  Cobden  and  of  Mr.  Bright  and  others,  a 
general  scheme  for  gathering  up  the  strength  of  the  Liberal  party. 
The  extraordinary  state  of  the  old  combinations  in  the  House  of 
Commons  was  a  standing  incentive  to  such  efforts  as  were  now 
made  in  the  north  of  England.  There  was  to  be  a  popular  party, 
based  on  real  principles  and  a  practical  programme,  as  distin- 
guished from  factitious  catchwords  and  insincere  cries  invented 
for  parliamentary  occasions.  A  great  association  might  perhaps 
be  formed,  and  it  was  suggested  that  it  should  be  called  the  Com- 
jnons  League.  Financial  Eeform  and  Parliamentary  Reform  were 
the  two  planks  of  the  platform.  At  a  great  meeting  in  Man- 
chester in  the  second  week  of  the  new  year,  Cobden  explained 
his  ideas  on  the  first,  and  Mr.  Bright  followed  with  a  demand  for 
the  second.  Cobden  believed  that  the  parts  about  financial  reform 
were  better  received  than  the  parts  about  parliamentary  reform, 
even  by  the  men  in  fustian  jackets.^  Meetings  were  held  in  other 
towns  in  the  nortli ;  and  the  two  champions  were  everywhere  re- 
ceived with  unbounded  cordiality.  Circulars  were  sent  out  from 
Manchester  for  the  formation  of  the  new  association,  and  between 

1  Letter  to  Mrs.  Cobden,  Jan.  10,  1849. 


^T.44.]  CORRESPONDENCE,   SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL.  335 

three  and  four  thousand  adhesions  were  received.  But  the  hew 
League  did  not  grow.  The  leaders  hardly  seemed  to  know  what 
it  was  that  they  wished  to  do.  They  were  not  sure  in  their  tac- 
tics. Cobden  thought  that  it  ought  to  be  a  metropolitan  associa- 
tion. Mr.  Bright  on  the  contrary  believed  that  Lancashire  and 
Yorkshire  must  be  its  centre.  The  scheme  of  the  association  was 
ambiguous.  "  We  are  asking  people,"  said  Mr.  Bright,  "  to  join 
for  an  undefined  or  ill-defined  object,  and  we  neither  propose  an 
end  to  the  movement,  nor  a  clear  and  open  way  for  working  it." 
The  two  chiefs  were  not  exactly  of  one  mind  as  to  the  true  policy 
in  the  most  important'  part  of  the  programme.  Cobden^  as  we 
have_sfluo±-feen  isaid,  was  essentially  an  economical,  a  moral,  and  a 
social  reformer.  He  was  never  an  enthusiast  for  mere  reform  in 
the  machinery.  Immediately  after  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Law, 
he  confessed  that  on  the  question  of  the  suffrage  he  had  gone 
back.  "  And  yet,"  he  went  on,  "  I  am  something  like  Peel  and 
Free  Trade.  I  do  not  oppose  the  principle  of  giving  men  a  con- 
trol over  their  own  affairs.  I  must  confess,  however,  that  I  am 
less  sanguine  than  I  used  to  be  about  the  effects  of  a  wide  exten- 
sion of  the  franchise."  ^  His  own  favorite  plan  of  extension 
through  the  forty- shilling  freeholder  only  recommended  itself  to 
him  because  it  brought  with  it  the  virtue  of  thrift,  and  the 
recommendation  of  property.  Mr.  Bright,  though  cordially  acqui- 
escing in  the  plan  so  far  as  it  went,  and  as  a  means  of  bringing 
the  old  factions  to  a  capitulation  in  some  of  the  counties,  always 
maintained  that  it  would  never  enfranchise  so  many  voters  per- 
manently as  to  make  any  real  and  effective  change  in  the  repre- 
sentation. Both  before  and  after  the  League  was  dissolved,  Mr. 
Bright  insisted  that  "  no  object  was  worth  a  real  and  great  effort,  ' 
short  of  a  thorough  reform  in  Parliament."  Although,  however, 
there  was  not  a  sufiiciently  clear  and  concentrated  unanimity  to 
give  an  impulse  to  a  new  League,  there  was  abundant  room  for 
strenuous  co-operation  in  the  work  about  which  they  were  cor- 
dially agreed. 

The  following  letter  written  to  Mr.  Bright  at  the  close  of  1848, 
two  or  three  weeks  before  the  meeting  at  Manchester,  shows  the 
point  of  view  to  which  Cobden  inclined,  and  to  what  extent  — 
and  it  was  not  great  —  he  differed  from  Mr.  Bright :  — 

"Dec.  23,  1848.  —  Since  writing  to  you,  I  have  again  read  and  ' 
reflected  upon  your  letter.  You  say  that  the  object  of  our  meet- 
ing must  be  specific  and  general ;  that  I  must  speak  upon  Finance, 
and  you  follow  upon  Parliamentary  Reform ;  and  that  then  a  so- 
ciety must  be  organized  for  a  general  registration  to  carry  out,  I 
presume,  both  objects.     I  thought  we  had  always  agreed  that  to 

*  To  Mr.  Sturge,  July  16,  1846. 


K^ 


336  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1848. 

Vcarry  the  public  along  with  us,  we  should  have  a  single  and  well- 
,-defined  object.  It  is  decidedly  my  opinion.  If  Parliamentary 
Reform  were  the  sole  object,  we  might  after  a  long  time  probably 
succeed ;  but  the  two  things  together  would  be  a  false  start,  and 
\it-  must  end  in  our  taking  to  one  or  the  other  exclusively.  It  is 
true  that  we  joined  them  together  in  our  meeting  of  Members  of 
Parliament  at  the  Free  Trade  Club,  and  that  was  because  we  did 
not  feel  ourselves  on  the  strongest  ground  with  the  middle  class 
even  then,  without  the  Expenditure  question,  and  it  is  vastly  more 
so  now.  Besides,  you  will  admit  that  we  could  not  ignore  the  ex- 
istence of  the  Liverpool  movement.  However  defective  in  men 
and  money  at  present,  they  are  in  as  good  a  position  as  we  were 
a  year  after  the  League  was  formed  ;  and  they  have  far  more  hold 
upon  the  public  mind  than  we  had  even  after  three  years'  agita- 
tion. I  rather  think  that  you  do  not  fully  appreciate  the  extent 
to  which  the  country  is  sympathizing  with  the  Liverpool  move- 

^  nient.  But  taking  the  fact  to  be  as  I  have  stated  it,  that  the 
movement  is  for  Financial  Reform,  and  nobody  can  deny  it,  I  am 
half  disposed  to  think  that  it  is  the  most  useful  agitation  we  could 
enter  upon.  The  people  want  information  and  instruction  upon 
armaments,  colonies,  taxation,  and  so  forth.  There  is  a  fearful 
mass  of  prejudice  and  ignorance  to  dispel  upon  these  subjects, 
and  whilst  these  exist,  you  may  get  a  reform  of  Parliament,  but 

I    you  will  not  get  a  reformed  policy. 

"  I  believe  there  is  as  much  clinging  to  colonies  at  the  present 
moment  amongst  the  middle  class  as  among  the  aristocracy ;  and 
the  working  people  are  not  wiser  than  the  rest.  And  as  respects 
armaments,  I  do  not  forget  that  last  December  [1847]  hardly  a 
Liberal  paper  in  the  kingdom  supported  me  in  resisting  the 
attempt  to  add  to  our  forces.  Such  papers  as  the  Sun,  WeeJdy 
Despatch,  Sunday  Times,  and  Liverpool  Mercury,  went  dead  against 
me ;  and  all  that  I  could  say  for  the  rest  is  that  they  were  silent. 
Now  all  these  questions  can  be  discussed  most  favorably  in  refer- 
ence to  the  expenditure.  You  may  reason  ever  so  logically,  but 
never  so  convincingly  as  through  the  pocket.  But  it  will  take 
time  even  to  play  off  John  Bull's  acquisitiveness  against  his  com- 
bativeness.  He  will  not  be  easily  persuaded  that  all  his  reliance 
upon  brute  force  and  courage  has  been  a  losing  speculation. 
Already  I  have  heard  from  good  Liberals  an  expression  of  fear 
that,  in  my  Budget,  I  have  'gone  too  far.'  But  I  have  said 
enough. 

"  And  now,  having  stated  my  view  of  what  the  object  must  be, 
j^-word  or  two  as  to  the  modus  operandi.     And  here  we  do  not 

\  differ.  I  am  for  going  at  once  to  the  registers  and  the  forty- 
shilling  qualifications.  Begin  where  the  League  left  off,  and  avow 
it  boldly.     Nay,  make  it  a  condition,  if  you  like,  of  your  alliance 


Mt.u.]        correspondknce.  social  and  political.  337 

with  Liverpool  that  such  shall  be  the  plan.  And  I  put  it  to  you 
and  Wilson,  whetlier  you  think  that  the  men  who  go  with  us  for 
the  Budget  and  direct  taxation,  will  not  be  likely  to  use  their  I 
votes  for  a  reform  of  Parliament.  I  should  feel  very  little  doubt  j 
about  getting  nearly  as  much  strength  for  the  one  question  as  the 
other,  by  merely  getting  people  to  register  and  qualify  for  retrench- 
ment and  direct  taxation.  Besides,  I  have  no  objection  to  our 
advocating  Eeform,  whilst  advocating  economy.  I  should  myself 
do  so.  I  would  say  —  We  may  cut  down  the  expenditure,  as  we 
did  in  1835  ;  but  it  will  grow  up  again,  as  it  has  since,  unless 
either  the  agitation  were  perpetual,  or  the  Parliament  were  re- 
formed. I  have  no  objection  to  this  line  of  argument.  I  object 
only  to  our  separating  ourselves  from  Liverpool  in  our  organi- 
zation. 

"  And  now  I  think  I  know  the  feeling  of  the  majority  of  the 
influential  money-givers  in  Manchester,  and  I  feel  convinced  that 
they  would  all  give  their  101.  more  heartily  for  my  plan  than  any 
other.  It  would  at  once  put  Wilson,  you,  and  me  in  a  pure  and 
disinterested  light  before  their  eyes.  We  should  not  be  open  to 
even  the  shade  of  a  suspicion  of  wishing  to  arrogate  to  ourselves 
any  separate  line,  or  to  use  them  as  our  party,  or  to  make  Man- 
chester needlessly  the  focus  of  a  central  agitation.  You  would 
have  far  more  strength  upon  the  platform  for  my  object  than  any 
other.  I  have  only  room  to  add  —  advertise  a  meeting  to  co- 
operate with  Liverpool  in  Financial  Eeform,  and  make  any  use 

you  like  of  my  name I  have  a  good  opinion  of  Paulton's 

judgment.  Not  a  word  has  passed  between  us  on  this  subject ; 
but  I  wish  you  would  let  him  read  my  letters,  and  ask  him  to 
give  a  candid  opinion  on  the  matter  in  discussion." 

Before  the  session  began,  he  took  part  along  with  Mr.  Bright  in 
a  ceremony  of  joyful  commemoration.     Peel's  measure  of  1846 
provided  that  the  duty  on  corn  should  expire  at  the  end  of  three 
years  (see  above,  p.  238).     The  day  arrived  on  the  first  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1849.     On  the  evening  of  the  thirty-first  of  January  a  gath- 
ering was  held  in  the  great  hall  at  Manchester.     Speeches  were 
made  and   choruses  were  sung  until  midnight.      When   twelve 
o'clock  sounded,  the  assembly  broke  out  in  loud  and  long-sus- 
tained cheers  to  welcome  the  dawn  of  the  day  which  had  at  last 
brought  Free  Trade  in  corn.     Free  Trade  in  its  turn  had  brought^ 
new  causes  for  which  to  fight.     Cobden  never  swerved  from  his, 
maxim  that  he  could  only  do  one  thing  at  a  time ;  but  his  activity  \ 
during  the  session  of  1849  included  in  the  same  effort  not  only 
reduced  armaments,  reduced  expenditure,  and  re-adjusted  taxa- 
tion, but  the  more  delicate  subject  of  international  arbitration. 

**  London,  Jan.  5,  1849.  (To  G.  Comhe)  —  I  hope  you  will  not 
think  there  is  any  inconsistency  in  the  strong  declaration  I  made 


338  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1849. 

at  the  meeting,  of  the  paramount  importance  of  the  question  of 
Education,  and  my  apparent  present  inactivity  in  the  matter. 
Owing  to  the  split  in  the  Liberal  party,  caused  by  Baines,  it  would 
be  impossible  for  me  to  make  it  the  leading  political  subject  at 
this  moment.  Time  is  absolutely  necessary  to  ripen  it,  but  in  the 
interim  there  are  other  topics  which  will  take  the  lead  in  spite  of 
any  efforts  to  prevent  it,  reduction  of  expenditure  being  the  fore- 
most ;  and  all  I  can  promise  myself  is  that  any  influence  I  may 
derive  now  from  my  connection  with  the  latter  or  any  other  move- 
ment, shall  at  the  fitting  opportunity  be  all  brought  to  bear  in 
favor  of  National  Education.  To  confess  the  truth,  I  can  only  do 
one  thing  at  a  time.  Here  am  I  now  put  in  a  prominent  position 
upon  the  most  complex  of  all  public  questions,  the  national  finan- 
ces, and  next  session  I  shall  be  perhaps  more  the  object  of  attack, 
and  my  budget  more  the  subject  of  criticism,  than  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  and  his  financial  measures.  For  all  this  I  am 
obliged  to  prepare  myself  by  studying  the  dry  details  of  official 
papers,  and  reading  Hansard  from  1815  to  the  present  day,  whilst 
at  the  same  time  I  am  in  a  daily  treadmill  of  letter- writing,  for 
every  man  having  a  crotchet  upon  finance,  or  a  grievance  however 
trifling,  is  inundating  me  with  his  correspondence.  I  can't  help 
it,  though  I  believe  I  am  shortening  my  days  by  following  strictly 
the  rule  '  whatever  thou  doest,  do  with  all  thy  heart.'  You  know 
that  of  old  I  have  felt  a  strong  sentiment  upon  the  subject  of  war- 
like armaments  and  war.  It  is  this  moral  sentiment,  more  than 
the  £  s.  d.  view  of  the  matter,  which  impels  me  to  undertake  the 
advocacy  of  a  reduction  of  our  forces.  It  was  a  kindred  senti- 
ment (  more  than  the  material  view  of  the  question )  which  actu- 
ated me  on  the  Corn  Law  and  Free  Trade  question.  It  would 
enable  me  to  die  happy  if  I  could  feel  the  satisfaction  of  having 
in  some  degree  contributed  to  the  partial  disarmament  of  the 
world." 

"Feb.  8.  (  „  ) — I  hasten  to  reply  to  your  kind  inquiries 
about  my  budget.  In  a  day  or  two  I  intend  to  give  notice  of  a 
motion  declaratory  of  the  expediency  of  reducing  the  expenditure 
to  the  amount  of  1835.  The  terms  of  my  resolution  will  be  to 
reduce  the  expenditure  '  with  all  'practicable  speed.'  ^  I  am  too 
])ractical  a  man  of  business  to  think  that  it  can  be  done  in  one 
session.  But  I  will  raise  the  question  of  our  financial  system 
with  a  view  to  save  ten  millions,  and  that  will  arrest  public  in- 

1  The  motion  was  brought  forward  on  February  26,  and  was  to  the  effect  that 
the  net  expenditure  had  risen  by  ten  millions  between  1835  and  1848  ;  that  the 
increase  had  been  caused  principally  by  defensive  armaments  ;  that  it  was  not  war- 
ranted, while  the  taxes  required  to  meet  it  lessened  the  funds  applicable  to  product- 
ive industry  ;  and  that  therefore  it  was  expedient  to  reduce  the  annual  expenditure 
with  all  practicable  speed  to  the  amount  of  1835.  The  division  went  against  Cob- 
den's  motion  by  a  majority  of  197,  only  78  going  into  the  lobby  with  the  mover. 


iET.45.]  CORRESPONDENCE,   SOCIAL  AND   POLITICAL.  339 

teres t  in  a  way  which  no  nibbling  at  details  would  do.  In  less 
than  five  years  all  that  I  propose,  and  a  great  deal  more,  will  be 
accomplished. 

"  I  say  I  am  too  practical  to  think  that  the  reduction  of  ten 
millions  can  be  made  in  a  session,  because  the  changes  in  our  dis- 
tant colonies  will  take  time.  But  these  changes  ought  to  be  set 
about  at  once.  For  instance,  we  have  an  army  as  large  in  Canada 
and  the  other  North- American  Colonies  as  that  of  the  United 
States.  Yet  under  the  regime  of  Free  Trade,  Canada  is  not  a  whit 
more  ours  than  is  the  great  Kepublic.  To  keep  that  force  in  the 
North- American  Colonies  at  the  expense  of  the  tax-payers  of  this 
country,  is  precisely  the  same  drain  upon  our  resources  as  if  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  could  levy  a  contribution  upon 
us  for  the  pay  and  subsistence  of  its  army.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  our  army  in  Australia,  New  Zealand,  etc. ;  and  if  we  do  l^ 
not  draw  in  our  horns,  this  country,  with  all  its  wealth,  energy, 
and  resources,  will  sink  under  the  weight  of  its  extended  empire." 

"  April  9.  (  „  )  —  Did  this  subject  ever  come  under  your 
notice  ?  I  have  lying  before  me  a  return  of  all  the  barracks  in 
the  United  Kingdom,  the  date  of  their  erection,  their  size,  etc. 
It  is  to  me  one  of  the  most  discouraging  and  humiliating  docu- 
ments I  am  acquainted  with.  Almost  every  considerable  town 
has  its  barracks.  They  have  nearly  all  been  erected  since  1790, 
before  which  date  they  were  hardly  known,  and  were  denounqed 
with  horror  by  such  men  as  Chatham,  Fox,  etc.  By  far  the  most 
extensive  establishments  have  been  erected  during  the  last  twenty- 
five  years.  I  speak  of  Great  Britain.  As  for  Ireland,  it  is  stud- 
ded over  with  barracks  like  a  permanent  encampment.  I  need 
not  enlarge  upon  the  direct  moral  evils  of  such  places.  One  fact 
is  enough :  real  property  always  falls  in  value  in  the  vicinity  of 
barracks.  A  prison  or  a  cemetery  is  a  preferable  neighbor.  But 
you  will  also  see  at  a  glance  that  this  increase  of  barracks  is  the 
outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  increased  discontent  of  the  mass 
of  the  people,  and  the  growing  alarm  of  the  governing  classes.  It 
argues  great  injustice  on  one  side,  or  ignorance  on  the  other,  per- 
haps both.  The  expense  is  too  obvious  to  require  comment.  And 
where  is  this  to  end  ?  Either  we  must  change  our  system,  —  give 
the  people  a  voice  in  the  government,  and  qualify  the  rising 
generation  to  exercise  the  rights  of  freemen,  —  or  we  shall  follow 
the  fate  of  the  Continent,  and  end  in  a  convulsion. 

"  You  seem  to  be  puzzled  about  my  motion  in  favor  of  inter- 
national  arbitration.  Perhaps  you  have  mixed  it  up  with  other  ^ 
theories  to  which  I  am  no  party.  My  plan  does  not  embrace  the 
scheme  of  a  congress  of  nations,  or  imply  the  belief  in  the  millen- 
nium, or  demand  your  homage  to  the  principles  of  non-resistance. 
I  simply  propose  that  England  should  offer  to  enter  into  an  agree- 


340  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1849. 

ment  with  other  countries,  France,  for  instance,  binding  them  to 
refer  any  dispute  that  may  arise  to  arbitration.  I  do  not  mean 
to  refer  the  matter  to  another  sovereign  power,  but  that  each 
party  should  appoint  plenipotentiaries  in  the  form  of  commis- 
sioners, with  a  proviso  for  calling  in  arbitrators  in  case  they 
cannot  agree.  In  fact,  I  wish  merely  to  bind  them  to  do  that 
before  a  war,  which  nations  always  do  virtually  after  it.  As  for 
the  argument  that  nations  will  not  fulfil  their  treaties,  that  would 
apply  to  all  international  engagements.  We  have  many  prece- 
dents in  favor  of  my  plan.  One  advantage  about  it  is  that  it 
could  do  no  harm ;  for  the  worst  that  could  happen  would  be  a 
resort  to  the  means  which  has  hitherto  been  the  only  mode  of 
settling  national  quarrels.  Will  you  think  again  upon  the  subject, 
and  tell  me  whetlier  there  is  anything  impracticable  about  it  ? 

"  I  wdll  support  the  Oath  Aloolition  motion.^  There  ought  to 
be  no  swearing  in  courts  at  all.  But  instead  of  oaths,  the  clerk 
at  the  table  ought  to  read  to  every  witness,  before  he  gives  his 
evidence,  the  clause  of  the  Act  of  Parliament  which  imposes  a 
penalty  for  false  testimony." 

'' London,  June  1^.  (  „  )  —  I  am  glad  you  are  satisfied  with 
\/  the  debate  on  my  arbitration  motion.^  I  might  have  taken  higher 
ground  in  my  argument  with  more  justice  to  the  subject,  and  with 
more  effect  upon  the  minds  of  my  readers,  but  I  had  to  deal  wdth 
an  audience  determined  to  sneer  down  the  motion  as  Utopian. 
Ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  session,  I  had  to  run  the  gauntlet 
of  the  small  wits  of  the  House,  who  amused  themselves  at  my 
expense,  and  tittered  at  the  very  word,  arbitration.  These  men 
would  have  been  as  eager  as  any  Quaker  to  profess  a  desire  for 
peace,  but  were  prepared  to  pooh-pooh  as  utterly  visionary  any 
plan  for  trying  to  put  down  the  cherished  institution  of  war.  It 
was  to  meet  these  people  on  what  they  considered  their  strong 
ground,  that  I  dwelt  upon  the  practical  views  of  my  scheme,  and 
it  was  some  satisfaction  to  me  to  see  nearly  half  of  my  audience 
leave  the  House  without  voting,  and  to  draw  from  Lord  Palmer- 
stou  a  speech  full  of  admissions,  which  ended  by  an  amendment 
avowedly  framed  to  escape  a  direct  negation  of  my  motion.  The 
more  I  have  reflected  upon  the  subject,  the  more  I  am  satisfied 
that  I  am  right  at  the  right  time.  Next  session  I  will  repeat  my 
/  proposition,  and  I  will  also  bring  the  House  to  a  division  upon 
^    another  and  kindred  motion,  for  negotiating  with  foreign  countries, 

1  Lord  John  Russell's  resolution,  on  which  a  Bill  was  afterwards  founded,  for  the 
removal  of  Jewish  disabilities.  The  Bill  passed  the  Commons,  but  was  rejected  by 
the  Lords. 

2  On  June  12  Cobden  moved  an  Address  to  Her  Majesty,  praying  that  foreign 
powers  might  be  invited  to  concur  in  treaties,  binding  the  parties  to  refer  matters 
in  dispute  to  Arbitration.  Lord  Palmerston  moved  the  previous  question.  There 
was  a  rather  languid  debate,  and  the  previous  question  was  carried  by  176  to  79. 


>Et.45.]  correspondence,   SOCIAL  AND   POLITICAL.  341 

for  stopping  any  further  increase  of  armaments,  and,  if  possible, 
for  agreeing  to  a  gradual  disarmament.  These  motions  go  naturally 
together.  They  are  called  for  by  the  spirit  of  the  age  and  the 
necessities  of  the  finances  of  all  the  European  states. 

"  I  agree  with  you  in  thinking  that  the  French  have  displayed 
a  want  of  conscientiousness  and  an  excess  of  self-esteem  in  their 
treatment  of  the  Koman  people.  I  do  not  remember  in  all  history 
a  more  flagitious  violation  of  justice  than  the  French  expedition 
and  attack  on  Rome.  The  Republic  of  France  within  a  year  of 
its  own  existence  putting  down  a  Republic  in  a  neighboring 
country  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  —  a  Republic  born  of  the 
Parisian  barricades,  too,  —  is  a  monstrous  outrage  upon  decency 
and  common-sense.  There  is  a  certain  retribution  for  these  sins 
against  the  moral  laws.  They  carry  in  them  the  seeds  of  their 
own  punishment.  When  the  French  army  is  in  occupation  of 
Rome,  then  will  begin  the  difficulty  of  the  situation." 

When  the  session  was  over,  Cobden  with  indefatigable  zeal 
pushed  his  propagandism  in  new  fields.  Though  not  a  member, 
he  accompanied  his  friends  of  the  Peace  Society  to  the  Peace 
Congress,  which  was  this  year  held  in  Paris. 

"  Paris,  Aug.  19.  {To  Mrs.  Cohden.)  —  I  have  had  my  usual  fate 
in  passing  the  channel.  Scarcely  were  we  clear  of  the  harbor  at 
Newhaven,  when  I  was  laid  on  my  beam-ends,  and  for  six  hours 
I  never  moved  hand  or  foot.  It  was  rather  cold,  and  rained  a 
little,  so  that  I  was  obliged  to  be  covered  over  with  a  couple  of 
counterpanes,  and  there  I  lay  like  a  mummy  till  unrolled  in  the 
harbor  of  Dieppe,  at  about  half-past  six  o'clock.  It  makes  my 
flesh  creep  to  think  of  it.  I  tried  to  get  a  bed  at  the  hotel  where 
we  stopped,  but  it  was  full,  and  I  was  therefore  obliged  to  put  up 
with  the  discomfort  and  bad  odors  of  a  second-rate  place.  The 
following  morning  at  half-past  eleven  I  started  for  Paris  by  rail- 
road, which  goes  through  Rouen  and  along  the  valley  of  the  Seine, 
and  is  decidedly  the  most  picturesque  scene  of  all  the  railroads 
I  have  traversed.  We  reached  Paris  at  half-past  four,  and  I  am 
very  comfortably  installed  at  this  hotel  along  with  the  Peace  Com- 
mittee. There  is  every  prospect  of  a  large  attendance  at  the 
Congress,  but  we  shall  not  shine  so  brightly  as  I  could  wish  in 
French  names.  Our  friends  had  calculated  upon  the  attraction 
of  Lamartine's  name,  but  they  are  disappointed.  From  all  ac- 
counts he  appears  to  be  prostrated  in  mind,  body,  and  estate. 
We  have  chosen  Victor  Hugo  for  chairman.  He  stands  well 
socially,  and  his  name  is  known,  and  he  is  one  of  the  few  first- 
rate  men  to  be  had.  To  my  great  surprise  I  find  that  Horace 
Say,  after  signing  the  circulars  inviting  the  Congress,  has  gone  off 
to  Switzerland  with  his  family.  I  thought  him  the  most  trust- 
worthy man  in  France.     Bastiat  is  gone  to  Brussels,  but  I  am 


342  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1849. 

assured  he  will  come  back  to  the  Congress.  The  good  men  who 
have  come  here  from  England  to  make  the  arrangements,  are 
sadly  put  out  in  their  calculations  of  French  support,  by  having 
taken  too  much  to  heart  all  the  professions,  promises,  bows,  and 
compliments,  which  they  met  with  on  their  first  arrival  here. 
They  are  now  taking  such  demonstrations  at  their  just  value. 
Notwithstanding,  however,  all  drawbacks,  the  Congress  will  do 
much  good.  We  shall  pass  a  resolution  condemnatory  of  war 
loans,  which  will  serve  hereafter  as  a  basis  for  some  demonstra- 
tions against  the  attempt  to  find  money  for  Eussia  in  the  city. 
I  have  not  yet  seen  the  Hogarths,  or  anybody  I  know.  Yesterday 
I  spent  in  looking  about  Paris.  Paris  externally  looks  the  same 
as  ever ;  but  I  fancy  I  see  a  haggard,  careworn  expression  in  the 
people's  faces,  which  bespeaks  past  suffering  and  apprehension 
for  the  future.  This  may  be  imagination,  but  I  think  I  see  a 
great  many  sunken  eyes  and  clenched  lips  amongst  all  classes. 
There  have  been  terrible  suffering  and  losses,  and  nobody  has 
escaped  it  from  the  king  to  the  cabman." 

''Paris,  Aug.  25.  (  „  )  — You  will  think  me  negligent,  but  if 
you  saw  how  I  have  been  placed  here  for  the  last  three  days  you 
would  excuse  me.  I  am  at  the  headquarters  of  the  Committee  of 
Congress,  and  my  bedroom  (foolishly  enough,  on  my  part)  is  off 
the  common  sitting-room,  and  morning,  noon,  and  night  I  have 
been  in  the  melee.  Besides,  the  French  public  persists  in  regard- 
ing me  as  a  very  important  personage,  and  I  have  been  more  and 
more  beset  every  day  with  visitors.  But  now  the  sittings  of  the 
Congress  are  over,  and  I  am  able  to  say  that  it  has  proved  very 
successful ;  each  day  more  and  more  auditors  of  a  highly  respect- 
able class,  and  the  last  day  thousands  are  said  to  have  gone  away 
without  being  able  to  enter.  Everybody  is  astonished  that  upon 
such  a  subject,  and  at  this  hot  season  of  the  year,  in  Paris,  too,  a 
room  holding  2000  persons  should  be  crowded  for  three  days  run- 
ning, and  upon  the  same  subject.  However,  so  it  is.  Everything 
is  sure  to  succeed  that  has  a  good  principle  in  it.  All  our  good 
Quaker  friends  are  in  capital  spirits.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
our  meetings  will  have  done  good.  Everybody  has  been  talking 
about  them  during  the  week,  and  the  subject  of  peace  has  for  the 
first  time  had  its  hearing,  even  in  France.  My  first  speech,  al- 
though there  is  really  little  in  it,  produced  a  famous  effect  in  the 
audience  and  has  been  almost  universally  lauded  in  the  papers. 
It  ought  to  have  been  well  received,  for  it  cost  me  a  good  deal  of 
time  with  the  aid  of  Bastiat  to  write  and  prepare  to  read  it.  My 
good  friend  Bastiat  has  been  two  mornings  with  me  in  my  room, 
translating  and  teaching,  before  eight  o'clock.  The  Government 
has  shown  a  very  friendly  disposition  towards  us.  We  have  had 
all  the  public  buildings  and  monuments  thrown  open  to  us.     On 


iET.4b.J  CORRESPONDENCE,   SOCIAL  AND   POLITICAL.  343 

Monday  the  Versailles  water-works  and  the  water-works  at  St. 
Cloud  are  to  be  set  to  play  for  the  special  gratification  of  the 
members  of  the  Congress.  These  works  play  but  four  times  a 
year  on  Sundays,  and  the  Monday  has  been  chosen  on  this  occa- 
sion, in  delicat^e  compliment  to  the  religious  feeling  of  the  English. 
To-night  we  are  all  invited,  men  and  women,  to  De  Tocqueville's, 
the  French  Foreign  Minister.  On  Tuesday  the  deputation  returns, 
and  the  members  ought  to  be  highly  delighted  with  their  visit." 

"  Paris,  Aug.  28.  (  „  )  —  After  writing  to  you  on  Sunday  I 
found  that  the  post  did  not  leave  that  evening,  and  that  therefore 
my  letter  to  you  would  not  probably  reach  you  till  Wednesday. 
On  Monday  I  dined  with  De  Tocqueville  with  a  small  party. 
Yesterday  (Monday)  we  had  our  excursion  to  Versailles  in  a  special 
train  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning ;  about  700  were  in  the  party. 
We  were  shown  freely  over  the  palace,  and  then  we  went  to  a 
large  hall  called  the  Tennis  Court,^  in  which  luncheon  was  pro- 
vided. After  it  was  over,  I  was  moved  into  the  chair,  and  we 
went  through  the  interesting  little  ceremony  of  presenting  to  each 
of  our  American  friends  a  copy  of  the  New  Testament  in  French, 
as  a  tribute  of  our  admiration  for  their  zeal  in  coming  so  far  to 
attend  the  Congress.  Then  we  returned  to  the  grounds  of  the 
palace,  and  saw  the  exhibition  of  the  water-works,  which  was 
really  a  splendid  sight.  A  vast  crowd  of  French  people  was  there, 
and  they  were  exceedingly  good-humored  and  polite,  but  they 
seemed  to  be  unable  to  suppress  their  smiles  at  the  Quakeresses* 
bonnets.  From  Versailles  the  train  carried  the  party  to  St.  Cloud 
to  see  the  exhibition  of  the  water-works  there  at  night  illu- 
minated." 

While  Cobden  was  busied  in  this  way,  Mr.  Bright  had  gone  to 
study  the  Irish  Question  on  the  spot.  He  was  a  month  in  the 
country,  and  was  accompanied  for  part  of  the  time  by  one  of  the 
Commissioners  of  the  Board  of  Works.  His  inquiries  were  ex- 
tensive and  incessant,  and  what  he  had  said  about  Irish  affairs  in 
some  of  his  speeches  secured  for  him  particular  attention  on  every 
side.  Mr.  Bright  speedily  put  his  linger  upon  the  root  of  the  mis- 
chief What  was  universally  demanded,  he  said,  was  security  for 
improvements.  Want  of  this  was  the  cause  of  perpetual  war  be- 
tween landlord  and  tenant.  In  order  to  remove  the  evil,  he  agreed 
with  the  leading  members  of  the  practical  party  in  Ireland,  in 
certain  contingencies  to  introduce  a  Bill  which  they  were  pre- 
paring for  assuring  to  the  tenant  the  yalue  of  his  improvements. 
This  is  Cobden's  reply :  — 

1  The  famous  scene  of  one  of  the  most  memorable  incidents  of  the  first  stage  in 
the  French  Revolution.  Stran^ije  contrast  between  the  mad  agitation  and  furious 
resolve  of  the  Oath  of  the  Tennis  Court,  and  this  pacific  presentation  of  New  Testa- 
ments to  the  American  Quakers  ! 


344  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1849. 

"  London,  Oct.  1.  {To  Mr.  Bright) —  I  was  glad  to  receive  your 
letter,  and  much  interested  in  the  details  of  your  visit  to  Ireland. 
Be  assured  you  have  done  the  right  thing  in  going  there.  It  is  a 
duty  that  ought  to  be  similarly  fulfilled  by  all  of  us. 

"  I  was  staying  for  a  day  or  two  after  the  receipt  of  your  letter, 
with  a  friend  in  Sussex  (Mr.  Sharpe),  whose  son  is  the  nominal 
proprietor  through  his  mother  of  the  late  Sir  Wm.  Brabazon's 
estate  in  Mayo.  Both  father  and  son  were  strong  in  praise  of  the 
Encumbered  Estates  Act,  under  which  the  Brabazon  property, 
hopelessly  encumbered  and  in  Chancery,  is  to  be  disposed  of. 

"The  father,  who  is  a  Sussex  proprietor,  a  liberal  man,  and  a 
somewhat  enrage  political  econoniist,  hopes  this  Irish  measure  will 
be  a  stepping-stone  for  setting  real  estate  at  greater  liberty  in 
England.  For  myself  I  can't  help  thinking  that  everything  has 
got  to  be  done  for  Ireland.  Hitherto  the  sole  reliance  has  been 
on  bayonets  and  patching.  The  feudal  system  presses  upon  that 
country  in  a  way  which,  as  a  rule,  only  foreigners  can  understand, 
for  we  have  an  ingrained  feudal  spirit  in  our  English  character.  I 
never  spoke  to  a  French  or  Italian  economist  who  did  not  at  once 
put  his  finger  on  the  fact,  that  great  masses  of  landed  property 
were  held  by  the  descendants  of  a  conquering  race  who  were  living 
abroad,  and  thus  in  a  double  manner  perpetuating  the  remembrance 
of  conquest  and  oppression,  whilst  the  natives  were  at  the  same 
time  precluded  from  possessing  themselves  of  landed  property  and 
/  thus  becoming  interested  in  tbe  peace  of  the  country.  This  was 
y  always  pointed  out  to  me  as  the  prime  obstacle  to  improvement. 
»  .  How  we  are  to  get  out  of  this  dilemma  with  the  present  House  of 
Commons,  and  our  representative  system  as  it  is,  is  the  problem. 
For  we  cannot  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  our  law,  or  rather 
custom,  of  primogeniture,  has  its  roots  in  the  prejudices  of  the 
upper  portion  of  the  middle  class  as  well  as  in  the  privileges  of 
the  aristocracy.  The  snobbishness  of  the  moneyed  classes  in  the 
great  seats  of  commerce  and  manufactures  is  a  fearful  obstacle  to 
any  effectual  change  of  the  system. 

"  It  was  only  at  the  price  of  ten  millions  of  money,  and  hun- 
V'  dreds  of  thousands  of  famished  victims,  that  we  succeeded  in 
passing  our  Encumbered  Estates  Bill.  Our  only  consolation  is 
that  as  we  descend  in  the  ranks  of  the  middle  class,  and  approach 
.  the  more  intelligent  of  the  working  people,  the  feudal  prejudice 
diminishes  ;  and  this  brings  us  to  our  only  hope  for  progress, 
whether  in  this  question  or  the  others  on  which  we  feel  interested, 
namely,  an  increase  in  the  popular  element  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. I  have  no  fear  that  we  can  effect  this  change  gradually, 
and  certainly  if  we  can  induce  our  friends  to  work  with  persever- 
ance. I  do  not  object  to  Walmsley's  proceedings  —  in  fact  I  am 
grateful  to   anybody  that  does  anything   but  stagnate.     I   sub- 


^T.45.]         CORRESPONDENCE,   SOCIAL  AND  POLITICAL.  345 

scribed  my  mite  to  his  association  and  have  cheered  him  on. 
He  has  rendered  this  good  service,  at  least,  that  he  has  brought 
middle-class  people  and  Chartists  together  without  setting  them 
by  the  ears,  and  although  he  has  rather  shocked  some  moderate 
Liberals  by  his  broad  doctrines,  he  has  carried  others  uncon- 
sciously with  him.  But  this  good  being  done,  I  have  not  dis- 
guised from  him  that  mere  public  demonstrations  without  an 
organized  system  of  working  will  do  nothing  towards  effecting  a 
change  in  the  representation.  That  can  only  be  done  by  local 
exertions  in  the  registration  courts,  and  above  all  by  the  forty- 
shilling  votes  in  the  counties. 

"  Whilst  at  Eastbourne  we  talked  this  matter  over  with  Fox, 
who  was  there,  and  we  agreed  that  the  County  qualification 
movement  ought  to  be  encouraged  as  a  means  of  extending  the 
suffrage,  without  restricting  its  object  to  any  particular  scheme  of 
organic  or  practical  reforms.  The  forty'shilliiig  freehold  movement 
ought  to  he  supported  solely  on  the  principle  of  extending  the  suffrage 
—  and  it  is  a  scheme  which  involves  so  many  moral  and  social 
benefits  that  it  will  be,  I  feel  convinced,  sustained  by  a  great 
number  of  men  of  moral  weight  throughout  the  country  who 
would  not  work  with  us  for  any  large  scheme  of  sudden  organic 
change ;  and  these  men,  once  enlisted  with  us,  would  go  on  after- 
wards for  all  that  we  desire. 

"  I  wrote  to  Taylor  asking  him  some  questions :  first,  w^hether 
he  thought  a  delegate  meeting  of  all  those  already  engaged  or 
willing  to  embark  in  the  forty-shilling  movement  ought  to  be 
called.  Second,  whether  he  was  receiving  many  letters  upon  the 
subject  indicating  a  growing  interest  in  the  subject ;  whether  he 
was  invited  to  go  to  meetings,  and  whether  he  could  give  me  any 
statistics  of  the  existing  number  of  members,  etc.  Third,  whether 
he  thought  a  periodical  to  be  called  *  The  Freeholder,'  giving  a 
condensed  report  of  all  proceedings  and  directions  about  registra- 
tion, etc.,  should  be  published  by  a  Union  of  the  Societies.  Here 
is  his  answer.  Making  all  deductions  for  his  enthusiasm,  it  is 
clear  there  is  life  in  his  movement.  If  taken  up  zealously  by  all 
of  us,  T  do  believe  that  the  present  number  of  electors  could  be 
doubled  in  less  than  seven  years,  and,  between  ourselves,  such  a 
constituency  would  give  you  at  the  present  moment  a  more  reli- 
able support  for  thorough  practical  reforms  than  universal  suffrage. 
May  I  predict  that  if  we  should  succeed  to  the  extent  above 
named,  there  would  not  be  wanting  shrewd  members  of  the  Tory 
aristocracy  who  would  be  found  advocating  universal  suffrage,  to 
take  their  chance  in  an  appeal  to  the  ignorance  and  vice  of  the 
country  against  the  opinions  of  the  teetotalers,  nonconformist 
and  rational  Eadicals,  who  would  constitute  nine  tenths  of  our 
phalanx  of  forty-shilling  freeholders.     I  have  sent  you  Taylor's 


346  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1849. 

letters.  I  feel  much  inclined,  indeed  I  may  say  I  am  almost 
resolved,  to  go  to  Birmingham  at  the  end  of  this  month  or  the 
beginning  of  next  to  a  delegate  meeting.  Tell  me  what  you  and 
Wilson  think.  Pray  show  him  the  letters.  When  I  alluded  to 
a  circular  to  he  called  '  The  Freeholder/  I  meant  a  monthly  pub- 
lication as  a  beginning,  to  give  information  and  directions  about 
qualifying,  registering,  etc.,  and  to  record  the  names  and  proceed- 
ings of  all  societies.  But  such  a  publication  might  grow  into  a 
powerful  exponent  of  the  laws  of  real  property,  and  make  peojDle 
familiar  with  things  which  are  now  Hebrew  and  Greek  to  them. 

"  I  have  bored  you  all  so  much  about  this  forty-shilling  free- 
hold scheme,  that  you  seem  to  have  fallen  naturally  into  the  idea 
that  I  cherish  it  to  the  exclusion  of  a  broad  and  specific  plan  of 
reform.  It  is  not  so.  I  want  it  as  a  means  to  all  that  we  require, 
and  upon  my  conscience  it  is,  I  believe,  the  only  stepping-stone 
to  any  material  change.  The  citadel  of  privilege  in  this  country 
is  so  terribly  strong,  owing  to  the  concentrated  masses  of  property 
in  the  hands  of  the  comparatively  few,  that  we  cannot  hope  to 
assail  it  with  success  unless  with  the  help  of  the  propertied  classes 
in  the  middle  ranks  of  society,  and  by  raising  up  a  portion  of  the 
working-class  to  become  members  of  a  propertied  order ;  and  I 
know  no  other  mode  of  enlisting  such  co-operation  but  that 
which  I  have  suggested " 

"Nov.  4.  {To  Mr.  Bright)  —  If  you  know  Mr.  Kay's  address, 
don't  forget  to  impress  upon  him  the  importance  of  separating 
the  question  of  land  tenure  from  that  of  education  in  his  forth- 
coming book.  Nothing  is  more  wanted  than  a  good  treatise  on 
the  former  subject.  The  fate  of  empires,  and  the  fortunes  of  their 
peoples,  depend  upon  the  condition  of  the  proprietorship  of  land 
to  an  extent  which  is  not  at  all  understood  in  this  country.  We 
are  a  servile,  aristocracy-loving,  lord-ridden  people,  who  regard 
the  land  with  as  much  reverence  as  we  still  do  the  peerage  and 
baronetage.  Not  only  have  not  nineteen  twentieths  of  us  any 
share  in  the  soil,  but  we  have  not  presumed  to  think  that  we  are 
worthy  to  possess  a  few  acres  of  mother  earth.  The  politicians  who 
would  propose  to  break  up  the  estates  of  this  country  into  smaller 
properties,  will  be  looked  upon  as  revolutionary  democrats  aim- 
ing at  nothing  less  than  the  establishment  of  a  Eepublic  upon 
the  ruin  of  Queen  and  Lords. 

"  The  only  way  of  approaching  this  question  with  advantage  at 
the  present  moment  is  thuough  an  economical  argument.  And 
Mr.  Kay  may  do  himself  credit  by  his  treatment  of  the  subject, 
provided  he  gives  us  plenty  of  well-considered  facts  throwing 
light  upon  the  comparative  condition  of  the  people  in  countries 
where  land  is  subdivided,  and  where  it  is  held  in  great  masses. 
In  my  opinion  the  high  moral  and  social  condition  of  the  inhabi- 


^T.45.]  CORRESPONDENCE,   SOCIAL   AND   POLITICAL.  347 

tants  of  mountainous  countries  such  as  the  Swiss,  the  Biscayans, 
etc.,  etc.,  is  to  be  greatly  attributed  to  the  fact  that  as  a  rule  the 
land  in  hilly  countries  is  always  more  subdivided ;  in  fact,  that 
the  face  of  nature  is  almost  an  insuperable  bar  to  the  acquisition 
of  large  continuous  sweeps  of  landed  property. 

"P.  S.  —  Don't  you  think  that  'A  History  of  Chartism,'  from 
the  framing  of  the  Charter  down  to  the  present, time,  with  a  tem- 
perate but  truthful  narrative  of  the  doings  of  the  leaders,  would 
be  an  interesting  and  useful  work  ?  Somerville  is  the  man  to  do 
it  if  he  had  access  to  a  complete  file  of  the  Northern  Star.  The 
working-class  are  just  now  in  the  mood  for  reviewing  with  advan- 
tage the  bombastic  sayings  and  abortive  doings  of  Feargus  and 
his  lieutenants.  The  attempted  revival  of  the  Chartist  agitation 
under  the  old  leadership  makes  this  an  appropriate  time  for  such 
a  retrospect. 

"The  difficulty  with  Somerville  would  be  to  condense  suffi- 
ciently his  narrative  —  this  would  not  be  easy  even  with  one  who 
had  a  style  less  flowing  and  less  imagination  than  he  —  for  the 
temptation  to  quote  largely  from  the  speeches  and  letters  of  the 
big  Chartist  Bobadil  would  be  almost  irresistible.  Would  not 
such  a  work  be  interesting  in  a  series  of  letters  or  articles  in  the 
Examiner,  to  be  afterwards  printed  in  a  volume  ?  It  would  be 
certain  to  elicit  a  howl  from  the  knaves  who  were  subjected  to  the 
ordeal  of  the  pillory,  and  this  would  be  useful  in  attracting  atten- 
tion to  the  book." 

"December  6.  (To  Mr.  Bright.) — You  must  get  Captain  Mundy's 
edition  of  '  Brooke's  Diary.'  It  was  published  originally  by  Cap- 
tain Keppell,  and  some  horrid  passages  were  omitted  by  the  dis- 
cretion of  his  friends ;  but  a  new  edition  by  Captain  Mundy  was 
published  while  Brooke  was  afterwards  at  home,  and  those  parts 
were  restored.  See  the  first  vol.,  p.  311,  &c.,  and  p.  325.  There 
are  details  of  bloodshed  and  executions  which,  if  they  had  ap- 
peared in  the  first  volume,  would  have  checked  the  sentimental 
mania  which  gave  Brooke  all  his  powers  of  evil. 

"The  above  is  information  which  I  have  from  a  friend  who 
knows  all  about  the  affair  from  the  beginning,  and  it  may  be  relied 
on.  I  have  not  the  book.  I  fear  Gurney  will  be  an  obstacle  to 
anything  being  done.  I  sometimes  doubt  whetlier  his  obstruct- 
iveness  at  every  step  does  not  more  than  counteract  any  advan- 
tage derived  by  the  Society  from  the  influence  of  his  name.  I 
don't  understand  men  of  the  world  when  they  tell  us  we  must  rely 
upon  the  influence  of  Christian  principles,  and  boggle  at  every 
proposal  to  enforce  them  in  the  current  proceedings  of  govern- 
ments and  societies.  If  a  monk  held  such  language  in  his  cell, 
and  invited  us  to  rely  upon  fasts  and  flagellations,  I  could  see 
some  consistency  in  it.     But  when  such  sentiments  come  from  a 


348  '  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1849. 

millionnaire  in  Lombard  Street,  they  pass  my  comprehension.  If 
I  wished  to  do  as  little  as  possible,  I  should  wish  to  be  able  to 
convince  myself  that  I  was  in  the  path  of  duty  when  I  folded  my 
arms  and  exhorted  people  to  pray  for  the  triumph  of  Christian 
principles.  St.  Paul  did  something  more  than  that,  and  so  did 
George  Fox.  See  the  Manchester  Examiner  of  Saturday  next,  for 
an  article  which  I  have  sent  upon  the  Borneo  affair.  The  paper 
will  be  forwarded  to  you,  I  shall  be  at  Leeds  and  Sheffield  the 
week  after  next,  and  will  allude  to  the  subject  if  I  can.  It  shocks 
me  to  think  what  fiendish  atrocities  may  be  committed  by  English 
arms  without  rousing  any  conscientious  resistance  at  home,  pro- 
vided they  be  only  far  enough  off,  and  the  victims  too  feeble  to 
trouble  us  with  their  remonstrances  or  groans.  We  as  a  nation 
have  an  awful  retribution  in  store  for  us  if  Heaven  strike  a  just 
reckoning,  as  I  believe  it  does,  for  wicked  deeds  even  in  this  world. 
There  must  be  a  public  and  solemn  protest  against  this  wholesale 
massacre.  The  Peace  Society  and  the  Aborigines  Society  are 
shams  if  such  deeds  go  unrebuked.  We  cannot  go  before  the 
world  with  clean  hands  on  any  other  question  if  we  are  silent 
spectators  of  such  atrocities."  ^ 

"  Dec.  8.  (  „  )  —  You  seem  to  have  fallen  into  the  idea  that 
I  am  looking  to  the  freehold  plan  as  a  substitute  for  a  thorough 
reform.  I  look  to  it  as  a  means  to  do  something,  and  not  an  end. 
I  wish  to  abate  the  power  of  the  aristocracy  in  their  strongholds. 
Our  enemy  is  as  subtle  as  powerful,  and  I  fear  some  of  us  have 
not  duly  weighed  the  difficulties  of  our  task.  The  aristocracy  are 
afraid  of  nothing  but  systematic  organization  and  step-by-step 
progress.  They  know  that  the  only  advantage  we  of  the  stirring 
class  have  over  them  is  in  habits  of  persevering  labor.  They  fear 
nothing  but  the  application  of  these  qualities  to  the  business  of 
political  agitation.  I  prize  the  privilege  of  our  platforms,  and  the 
power  of  public  discussion  and  denunciation,  as  much  as  anybody ; 
but  public  meetings  for  Parliamentary  Reform  which  do  not  tend 
to  systematic  work  (as  was  not  the  case  in  the  League),  will  be 
viewed  by  the  aristocracy  with  complacency  as  the  harmless  blow- 
ing off  of  the  steam. 

"  With  this  impression,  I  have  urged  upon  Walmsley  an  organi- 
zation for  bringing  the  registers  of  the  Boroughs  under  the  control 
of  men  of  his  way  of  thinking,  men  favorable  to  the  four  points. 
This,  coupled  with  the  County  qualification  movement,  which  is 
urged  on  by  men  of  the  same  party,  would  in  two  or  three  years  if 
resolutely  worked  place  us  in  a  respectable  position  in  the  House. 

"  You  seem  to  speak  as  if  I  were  the  obstacle  to  the  movement 
being  carried  out  in  Manchester  last  year.     My  own  fear  was  lest 

1  Borneo  affairs  were  not  fully  discussed  in  Parliament  until  1851,  when  Cobden 
supported  Hume's  motion  for  in(iuiry. 


j:t.45.]        correspondence,  social  and  political.  349 

the  public  elsewhere  should  be  deceived  as  to  what  we  should  do 
for  them  in  Manchester,  for  !•  felt  that  we  had  not  the  materials 
there  to  renew  such  an  agitation  as  was  proposed.  It  is  not  in 
human  nature  that,  after  the  exhaustion  of  one  great  effort,  the 
same  men  should  begin  another  of  an  equally  arduous  character. 
I  am  also  of  opinion  that  we  have  not  the  same  elements  in 
Lancashire  for  a  Democratic  Reform  movement,  as  we  had  for  Free 
Trade.  To  me  the  most  discouraging  fact  in  our  political  state  is 
the  condition  of  the  Lancashire  Boroughs,  where,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Manchester,  nearly  all  the  municipalities  are  in  the  hands 
of  the  stupidest  Tories  in  England ;  and  where  we  can  hardly  see 
our  way  for  an  equal  half-share  of  Liberal  representation  in  Par- 
liament. We  have  the  labor  of  Hercules  in  hand  to  abate  the 
power  of  the  aristocracy  and  their  allies,  the  snobs  of  the  towns. 
I  have  faith  in  nothing  but  slow  and  heavy  toil,  and  I  shall  lose 
all  hope  if  we  cannot  see  with  toleration,  and  a  desire  to  encour- 
age, every  effort  that  aims  at  curtailing  the  power  and  privileges 
of  the  common  enemy." 

Cobden  was  never  so  immersed  in  political  projects  as  to  forget 
how  much  of  the  vital  work  of  social  improvement  lies  entirely^ 
away  from  the  field  of  politics.  While  he  was  corresponding  with 
Mr.  Bright  about  economic  and  parliamentary  reform,  and  with 
George  Combe  about  education,  he  did  not  lose  sight  of  a  third 
cause  which  seemed  to  him,  as  it  has  always  done  to  Mr.  Bright 
also,  not  any  less  important  to  the  national  welfare  than  either  of 
the  other  two.  The  letter  which  follows  was  written  to  Mr. 
Livesey,  a  zealous  advocate  for  the  promotion  of  Temperance:  — 

"London,  Oct.  10.  —  Your  letter  has  given  me  very  great  pleas- 
ure. It  has  often  been  a  matter  of  sincere  regret  to  me  that  I 
have  not  had  the  pleasure  since  my  return  to  England  of  shaking 
hands  with  you.  I  have  taken  up  my  abode  permanently  here, 
for  being  obliged  to  be  six  months  in  London,  and  finding  it  intol- 
erable to  be  so  long  separated  from  my  family,  I  had  no  alterna- 
tive but  to  make  choice  of  one  abode,  or  to  have  two  removals  of 
my  household  every  year,  which  is  both  unpleasant  and  expensive. 
As  I  had  no  business  ties  in  Manchester,  I  was  tempted  by  the 
climate  to  leave  my  esteemed  friends  and  neighbors  to  settle  here, 
where  I  shall  never  form  the  sterling  friendships  that  I  possessed 
in  Lancashire.  The  damp  and  rigorous  climate  of  South  Lanca- 
shire, with  its  clay  soil,  never  agreed  with  my  constitution,  which 
requires  a  more  genial  temperature  and  a  sandy,  dry  soil,  such  as 
I  was  used  to  in  my  early  days  in  Sussex.  My  abode  is  near  the 
Great  Western  Station,  Paddington,  the  highest  part,  as  well  as 
the  driest,  of  the  metropolis. 

"  You  are  right  in  the  path  of  usefulness  you  have  chalked  out 
for  yourself;  the  temperance  cause  really  lies  at  the  root  of  all    ^ 


350  XIFE   or  COBDEN.  [1849. 

social  and  political  progression  in  this  country.  The  English  peo- 
ple are,  in  many  respects,  the  most  reliable  of  all  earthly  beings. 
I  am  not  one  who  likes  to  laud  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  as  being 
superior  to  all  others  in  every  quality ;  for  when  we  remember 
that  we  owe  our  religion  to  Asiatics,  our  literature,  architecture, 
and  fine  arts  greatly  to  the  Greeks,  our  numeral  signs  to  the 
Arabs,  our  civilization  to  the  inhabitants  of  Italy,  and  much  of  our 
physical  science  and  mechanical  inventions  to  the  Germans  ;  when 
we  recollect  these  things  it  ought  to  make  us  moderate  in  our  ex- 
clusive pretensions.  But  give  me  a  sober  Englishman,  possessing 
the  trutlifulness  common  to  his  country,  and  the  energy  so  pecul- 
iarly his  own,  and  I  will  match  him  for  being  capable  of  equal- 
ling any  other  man  in  the  every-day  struggles  of  life.  He  has  a 
self-depending  and  self-governing  instinct  which  carries  him 
triumphantly  through  all  difficulties  and  dangers.  But  in  trav- 
elling through  all  civilized "  countries,  I  have  often  been  struck 
with  the  superiority  that  foreigners  enjoy  over  us  from  their 
greater  sobriety,  which  imparts  to  them  higher  advantages  of  civ- 
ilization, even  when  they  are  really  far  behind  us  in  the  average 
of  education  and  in  political  institutions.  The  energy  natural  to 
the  English  race  degenerates  to  savage  brutality  under  the  influ- 
ence of  habitual  drunkenness  ;  and  one  of  the  worst  effects  of 
intemperate  habits  is  to  destroy  that  self-respect  which  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  all  virtuous  ambition.  It  is  here  that  I  have  often  been 
struck  with  the  inferiority  of  our  w^orking  people,  at  least  that 
portion  of  them  which  habitually  indulges  in  drunkenness,  happily 
every  year  diminishing  in  number.  They  want  the  decent  self- 
possession  and  courteous  manners  which  you  find  among  more 
sober  nations.  If  you  could  convert  us  into  a  nation  of  water- 
drinkers,  I  see  no  reason  why,  in  addition  to  our  being  the  most 
energetic,  we  should  not  be  the  most  polished  people,  for  we  are 
inferior  to  none  in  the  inherent  qualities  of  the  gentleman,  truth- 
fulness and  benevolence.  With  these  sentiments,  I  need  not  say 
how  much  I  reverence  your  efforts  in  the  cause  of  teetotalism,  and 
how  gratified  I  was  to  find  that  my  note  ( written  privately,  by 
the  way,  to  Mr.  Cassell )  should  have  afforded  you  any  satisfaction, 
I  am  a  living  tribute  to  the  soundness  of  your  principles.  With  a 
delicate  frame  and  nervous  temperament,  I  have  been  enabled,  by 
temperance,  to  do  the  work  of  a  strong  man.  But  it  has  only  been 
by  more  and  more  temperance.  In  my  early  days  I  used  some- 
times to  join  with  others  in  a  glass  of  spirit  and  water,  and  beer 
was  my  every-day  drink.  I  soon  found  that  spirits  would  not  do, 
and  for  twenty  years  I  have  not  taken  a  glass  unless  as  a  medicine. 
Then  port  and  sherry  became  almost  as  incompatible  with  my 
mental  exertions,  and  for  many  years  I  have  not  touched  those 
wines  excepting  for  form's  sake  in  after-dinner  society.   .  Latterly, 


^T.45.]  CORRESPONDENCE,   SOCIAL  AND   POLITICAL.  351 

when  dining  out,  I  find  it  necessary  to  mix  water  even  with 
champagne.  At  my  own  table  I  never  have  anything  but  water 
wlien  dining  with  my  family,  and  we  have  not  a  beer-barrel  in  the 
house.  For  some  years  we  have  stipulated  with  all  our  servants 
to  drink  water,  and  we  allow  them  extra  wages  to  show  that  we 
do  not  wish  to  treat  them  worse'  than  our  neighbors.  All  my 
cliildren  will,  I  hope,  be  teetotalers.  So  you  see  that,  without 
beginning  upon  principle,  I  have  been  brought  to  your  beverage 
solely  by  a  nice  observance  of  what  is  necessary  to  enable  me  to 
surmount  an  average  mental  labor  of  at  least  twelve  hours  a  day. 
I  need  not  add  that  it  would  be  no  sacrifice  to  me  to  join  your 
ranks  by  taking  the  pledge.  On  the  contrary,  it  would  be  a 
satisfaction  to  me  to  know  that  from  this  moment  I  should  never 
taste  fermented  drink  again.  Shall  I  confess  it  ?  My  only  re- 
straining feeling  would  be  that  it  would  compel  a  singularity  of 
habits  in  social  life.  Not  that  this  would,  I  trust,  be  an  insur- 
mountable obstacle,  if  paramount  motives  of  usefulness  urged  me 
to  the  step." 

In  connection  with  the  same  subject,  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Ashworth, 
mildly  protesting  against  a  political  banquet,  and  pointing  out  the 
superior  courage  of  the  Americans  in  their  way  of  making  war  on 
this  particular  temptation  to  excessive  self-indulgence  :  — 

"  Dec.  13. —  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  dinner-parties  are  the  best 
tactics  for  our  party  to  fall  into  in  Manchester.  Our  strength  lies 
with  the  shopocracy,  and  I  think  the  members  for  Manchester  are 
turning  their  backs  upon  the  main  army  of  reformers  when  they 
leave  the  Free  Trade  Hall  for  a  meeting  of  any  kind  in  a  smaller 
room.  Public  dinners  are  good  for  our  opponents,  but  I  have  more 
faith  in  teetotalism  than  bumper  glasses,  so  far  as  the  interests  of 
the  democracy  are  concerned.  The  moral  force  of  the  masses  lies 
in  the  temperance  movement,  and  I  confess  I  have  no  faith  in  any- 
thing apart  from  that  movement  for  the  elevation  of  the  working 
class.  We  do  not  sufficiently  estimate  the  amount  of  crime,  vice, 
poverty,  ignorance,  and  destitution,  which  springs  from  the  drink- 
ing habits  of  the  people.  The  Americans  have  a  clearer  perception 
of  the  evils  of  drunkenness  upon  the  political  and  material  prospects 
of  the  people,  and  their  leading  men  set  an  example  of  temperance 
on  all  public  occasions.  I  lately  read  an  account  of  a  great 
political  meeting  in  New  Hampshire,  at  which  Daniel  Webster 
presided,  when  fifteen  hundred  persons  sat  down  to  dinner,  at 
which  not  a  drop  of  wine,  spirits,  or  beer  was  drunk.  Depend  on 
it,  they  were  more  than  a  match  for  four  times  their  number  of 
wine-bibbers.  You  will  wonder  why  I  preach  this  homily  to  you. 
But  it  is  apropos  of  the  Corn  Exchange  dinner.  .  .  .  Sure  am  I 
that,  when  the  election  day  comes,  the  teetotalers  will  be  found 
the  best  workers  in  the  ranks  of  the  Liberals,  whilst  the  drinkers 
will  be  the  only  hope  of  the  Tories." 


352  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1850. 

"I  remember  that  one  year  (1843),"  Cobden  once  wrote  to 
Combe,  by  way  of  illustrating  this  matter,  "  Bright,  Colonel 
Thompson,  and  I,  invaded  Scotland  and  made  a  tour  of  the  king- 
dom, separating  as  we  entered  and  reuniting  at  Stirling  on  the 
completion  of  our  work.  There,  after  a  large  public  meeting,  we 
adjourned  to  our  hotel,  where  we  were  joined  by  a  number  of 
baillies  and  other  leading  men,  who  sat  with  us,  to  our  great  dis- 
comfort (for  we  needed  our  beds ),  till  one  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
drinking  whiskey-toddy  out  of  glasses  which  they  filled  from 
tumblers  with  little  ladles,  and  I  remember  that  a  certain  sleight 
of  hand  in  this  operation,  acquired,  I  suppose,  by  long  practice, 
amused  us  Southrons  a  good  deal.  As  we  three  Englishmen  took 
nothing  but  tea,  it  drew  attention  to  our  total  abstinence  princi- 
ples, which  were  then  more  rare  than  at  present.  We  compared 
notes  with  one  another  in  the  hearing  of  the  baillies,  and  found 
that  in  our  tour  in  Scotland  not  a  shilling  had  been  paid  by  us 
for  spirits,  beer,  or  wine."  Their  companions  were  at  first  disposed 
to  eye  them  rather  contemptuously,  but  after  hearing  them  re- 
count the  work  they  had  gone  through,  the  number  of  meetings 
they  had  attended,  very  often  two  in  one  day,  the  baillies  were 
constrained  to  admit,  as  they  placed  their  ladles  finally  in  the 
emptied  tumblers,  that  water-drinking  was  not  incompatible  with 
indomitable  energy  and  long  perseverance  in  exhausting  labor. 


^  CHAPTEK  XXI. 

THE  DON  PACIFICO  DEBATE  —  THE  PAPAL  AGGRESSION  —  COERE- 
SPONDENCE  WITH  MR.  BRIGHT  ON  REFORM  —  KOSSUTH. 

,  The  year  1850  has  an  important  place  in  the  history  of  Cobden's 
sj  principles,  because  it  is  the  date  of  a  certain  discussion  in  Parlia- 
ment which  marked  the  triumph  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  though 
for  no  longer,  of  the  school  which  was  inveterately  antagonistic 
to  his  whole  scheme  of  national  policy.  The  famous  Don  Pacifico 
debate  was  the  turning-point  in  the  career  of  Lord  Palmerston, 
and  it  was  the  first  clear  signal  of  the  repulse  of  Cobden's  cher- 
ished doctrine  for  twenty  years  to  come. 

Lord  Palmerston  had  been  at  the  Foreign  Office  for  four  years. 

During  that  time  he  had  been  incessantly  active  in  the  affairs  of 

V.     half  the  countries  of  Europe.     That  taquinerie  of  which  Bastiat 

complained  so  bitterly  to  Cobden,  was  at  its  height.    Nothing  like 

it  was  ever  seen  in  our  politics  before  or  since.     He  had  brought 


iET.46.]  THE  DON   PACIFICO  DEBATE.  353 

England  to  the  brink  of  war  with  France  in  connection  with  the 
Spanish  Marriages.  He  had  sent  the  fleet  to  the  Tagus  to  prevent 
the  people  of  Portugal  from  settling  their  internal  affairs  in  their 
own  way.  He  had  plunged  into  the  thick  of  the  dangerous  Euro- 
pean complications  connected  with  the  civil  war  among  the  Swiss 
Cantons.  An  English  agent  had  been  despatched  on  a  roving 
commission  to  the  states  south  of  the  Alps,  to  teach  politics,  as 
Mr.  Disraeli  said,  to  the  country  where  Machiavelli  was  born. 
When  war  broke  out  between  the  King  of  Naples  and  his  subjects 
in  Sicily,  Lord  Palmerston's  emissary  rode  the  whirlwind  and  tried 
to  guide  the  storm.  The  bustling  delirium  came  to  a  climax  when 
the  Foreign  Secretary  told  his  ambassador  at  Madrid  to  give  a 
severe  lecture  to  the  Spanish  Government  for  failing  to  respect 
the  opinions  and  sentiments  of  their  country.  With  a  laudable 
sense  of  their  own  dignity,  the  Spanish  Government  sent  Lord 
Palmerston's  despatch  back,  and  ordered  the  British  Minister  to 
leave  the  country  in  eight  and  forty  hours.  Lord  Palmerston  sin- 
cerely believed  that  he  was  carrying  out  those  vague  and  much 
disputed  objects  which  go  by  the  name  of  the  Principles  of  Mr. 
Canning.  Nor  has  any  one  ever  denied  that  in  all  this  untiring 
restlessness  he  was  moved  by  an  honest  interest  in  good  govern-  ^ 
ment,  or  by  a  vigorous  resolution  that  his  country  should  play  a 
prominent  and  worthy  part  in  settling  the  difficulties  of  Euro}:»e. 
The  conception  had  about  it  a  generous  and  taking  air.  It  was 
magnificent,  but  unluckily  there  was  no  sense  in  it.  For  the  un- ' 
reflecting  portion  of  mankind  the  spectacle  of  energy  on  a  large 
scale  has  always  irresistible  attractions ;  vigor  becomes  an  end  in 
itself  and  an  object  of  admiration  for  its  own  sake.  Now  that  the 
contemporary  mists  have  cleared  away,  everybody  can  see  that 
Lord  Palmerston's  vigor  at  this  epoch  was  futile  in  its  ultimate 
results  to  others,  and  in  its  immediate  circumstances  full  of  the 
gravest  danger  to  ourselves.  It  kept  us  constantly  on  the  edge 
of  war,  it  involved  waste  of  our  resources,  and  it  diverted  atten-  , 
tion  from  the  long  list  of  improvements  that  were  so  sorely  needed  '^ 
within  our  own  gates. 

With  what  feeling  Cobden  watched  these  doings,  we  may  ima- 
gine. They  roused  him  to  renewed  assaults  upon  the  public  opin- 
ion which  tolerated  or  abetted  them.  Throughout  the  autumn  of  > 
1849*  he  and  his  friends  pursued  their  operations  with  all  their 
usual  zeal  and  confidence.  He  made  speeches  at  Leeds,  Bradford, 
Manchester,  and  others  of  the  northern  towns,  saying  over  again 
with  new  illustrations  what  he  had  been  saying  during  the  pre- 
vious session  about  retrenchment,  readjusted  taxation,  the  neces- 
sity of  lessened  armaments,  the  impolicy  of  our  colonial  relations. 
People  listened,  were  keenly  interested,  and  in  the  course  of  years 
the  seed  which  Cobden  was  sowing  germinated  and  bore  good 

23 


354  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1850. 

fruit.  But  there  were  for  the  moment  certain  transactions  in 
Eastern  Europe  which  stirred  popular  passion  in  England  to  the 
depths,  and  prepared  the  way  for  those  unfortunate  events  which 
five  years  later  seemed  to  dash  the  whole  fabric  of  Cobden's  hopes 
down  to  the  ground. 

The  Hungarian  War  of  Independence  was  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable incidents  in  the  revolutionary  outburst  of  1848,  as  its 
suppression  was  one  of  the  most  important  episodes  in  the  abso- 
lutist reaction  which  so  speedily  followed.  The  Czar  of  Russia 
came  to  the  aid  of  the  Emperor  of  Austria ;  after  a  brave  resist- 
ance the  Hungarian  forces  were  forced  to  surrender  to  the  Russian 
general ;  while  Kossuth  and  others  of  the  patriotic  leaders  crossed 
the  frontier  into  the  Turkish  provinces,  and  placed  themselves 
under  the  protection  of  the  Ottoman  Porte.  The  two  northern 
powers  demanded  that  the  refugees  should  be  handed  over  by  the 
Turkish  government,  and  for  some  time  Europe  looked  with  in- 
tense excitement  upon  the  diplomatic  struggle.  Cobden  shared 
to  the  full  the  vehement  indignation  with  which  his  countrymen 
had  watched  these  evil  transactions.  At  the  same  time  he  did 
not  fail  to  see  the  danger  of  this  just  sympathy  with  a  good  cause 
turning  into  an  irresistible  cry  for  armed  intervention  on  behalf 
of  Hungarian  Independence  and  its  champions.  It  must  be  owned 
that  Cobden's  position  was  a  very  delicate  one.  It  seems  to  the 
present  writer  to  be  impossible  to  state  the  principle  of  non- 
intervention in  rational  and  statesmanlike  terms,  if  it  is  under  all 
circumstances,  and  without  any  qualification  or  limit,  to  preclude 
an  armed  protest  against  intervention  by  other  foreign  powers. 
There  may  happen  to  be  good  reasons  why  we  should  on  a  given 
occasion  passively  watch  a  foreign  Government  interfering  by  vio- 
lence in  the  affairs  of  another  country.  Our  own  Government  may 
have  its  hands  full ;  or  it  may  have  no  military  means  of  inter- 
vening to  good  purpose ;  or  its  intervention  might  in  the  long-run 
do  more  harm  than  good  to  the  objects  of  its  solicitude.  But  there 
can  be  no  general  prohibitory  rule.  Where,  as  here,  a  military 
despot  interfered  to  crush  the  men  of  another  country  while  strug- 
gling for  their  national  rights,  no  principle  can  make  it  wrong  for 
a  free  nation  to  interfere, by  force  against  him.  It  can  only  be  a 
question  of  expediency  and  prudence. 

Of  course  so  obvious  a  distinction  was  not  unperceived  by  Cob- 
den, and  he  had  a  sufficiently  strong  case  without  straining  the 
general  principle  further  than  it  can  legitimately  be  made  to  go. 
At  a  meeting  which  was  held  at  the  London  Tavern  to  protest 
against  the  Russian  invasion  of  Hungary,  he  set  forth  in  definite 
[/language  his  view  of  the  nature  and  the  duty  of  a  right  interven- 
tion. By  a  singular  chance,  Lord  Palmerston  forgot  to  meddle,  even 
by  a  lecture,  in  the  one  case  at  this  date  where  he  might  possibly 


^T.46.]  THE  DON   PACIFICO   DEBATE.  355 

have  meddled  to  good  effect.  Russia,  said  Cobden,  was  allowed 
to  march  her  armies  across  tlie  territory  of  Turkey,  through  Wal- 
lachia  and  Moldavia,  to  strike  a  death-blow  at  the  heart  of  Hun- 
gary, and  yet  no  protest  was  recorded  by  our  Government  against 
that  act.  It  was  his  deliberate  conviction,  as  it  was  that  of  the 
most  illustrious  men  who  were  engaged  in  tlie  Hungarian  struggle, 
that  if  Lord  Palmerston  had  made  a  simple  verbal  protest  in  ener- 
getic terms,  Russia  would  never  have  invaded  Hungary.  "  It  is 
well  known,"  he  said,  "  that  the  Ministers  of  the  Czar  almost  went 
down  on  their  knees  to  beg  and  entreat  him  not  to  embark  in  a 
struggle  between  Austria  and  Hungary.  Our  protest  would  im- 
mediately have  been  backed  by  the  Ministry  of  the  Czar  if  it  had 
been  made;  and  I  believe  it  would  have  prevented  that  most 
atrocious  outrage  upon  the  rights  and  liberties  of  a  constitutional 
country."  This  protest  he  would  have  made,  but  he  would  have 
resisted  any  attempt  to  fight  the  battle  of  Hungary  on  the  banks 
of  the  Danube  or  the  Theiss. 

In  other  words,  he  would  have  relied  upon  opinion.  He  was 
too  practical  to  dream  that  regard  for  purely  moral  opinion  could 
be  trusted  to  check  the  overbearing  impulse  of  powerful  selfish 
interests.  Wars,  however,  constantly  arise  not  from  the  irrecon- 
cilable clashing  of  great  interests  of  this  kind,  but  from  misman- 
aged trifles.  This  was  what  he  had  maintained  in  his  argument 
for  arbitration.  The  grave  and  unavoidable  occasions  for  war,  he 
said,  are  few.  In  the  ordinary  dealings  of  nations  with  one 
another,  where  a  difference  arises,  it  is  about  something  where  ex- 
ternal opinion  might  easily  be  made  to  carry  decisive  weight.  In 
the  undecided  state  of  the  Czar's  mind  as  to  the  invasion  of  Hun- 
gary, a  vigorous  expression  of  English  opinion  might  and  probably  v 
would  have  made  all  the  difference.  However  that  might  be,  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  more  highly  civilized  powers  to  lose  no  oppor- 
tunity of  shaping  and  strengthening  the  common  opinion  of  Eu- 
rope against  both  intervention  of  nations  in  one  another's  affairs,  t 
and  against  war  for  the  first  resort  instead  of  the  very  last,  as  the 
means  of  settling  international  differences. 

At  this  time  Cobden  warmly  took  up  what  seemed  a  most 
effective  way  of 'checking  war  and  the  preparations  for  war  on  the 
part  of  the  two  powers  whose  tyrannical  action  had  inflamed  the 
resentment  of  his  countrymen.  With  singular  fire  he  entered  on 
a  crusade  against  the  practice  of  lending,  first  to  Austria  and  tlien 
to  Russia,  the  great  sums  of  money  which  were  under  various  dis- 
guises and  pretexts  in  effect  borrowed  to  repay  the  cost  of  the  late 
oppressive  war.  In  October  he  delivered  a  powerful  speech 
against  the  Austrian  loan  of  seven  millions.  In  the  following 
January  he  convened  a  meeting  at  which  he  denounced  with  still 
more  unsparing  invective  the  loan  of  five  and  a  half  millions 


356  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1850. 

which  was  asked  for  by  Eussia.  He  insisted  that  the  investment 
was  unsound ;  that  the  funding  system  is  injurious  to  mankind 
and  unjust  in  principle;  that  the  exportation  of  capital  to  be 
destroyed  and  lost  in  the  bottomless  abyss  of  foreign  wars,  is  con- 
trary to  the  principles  of  political  economy.  What  paradox  could 
be  more  flagrant,  lie  asked,  than  for  a  citizen  to  lend  money  to  be 

\y  tlie  means  of  military  preparations  on  the  part  of  a  foreign  Power, 
when  he  knew,  or  ought  to  have  known,  that  these  very  prepara- 
/  tions  for  which  he  was  providing  would  in  their  turn  impose  upon 
^  himself  and  the  other  tax-payers  of  his  own  country  the  burden 
of  counter-preparations  to  meet  them  ?  What  man  with  the  most 
rudimentary  sense  of  public  duty  could  pretend  that  it  was  no 
affair  of  his  to  what  use  his  money  was  put,  so  long  as  his  interest 

^  was  high  and  his  security  adequate  ?  What  was  this  money 
wanted  for  ?  Austria,  with  her  barbarous  consort,  had  been 
engaged  in  a  cruel  and  remorseless  war,  and  now  she  came, 
stretching  forth  her  bloodstained  hand  to  honest  Dutchmen  and 
Englishmen,  and  asking  them  to  furnish  the  force  of  this  hateful 
devastation.  Not  only  was  such  a  system  a  waste  of  national 
wealth,  an  anticipation  of  income,  a  destruction  of  capital,  the 
imposition  of  a  heavy  and  profitless  burden  on  future  genera- 
tions: besides  all  this,  it  was  a  direct  connivance  at  acts  and  a 
policy  which  the  very  men  who  were  thus  asked  to  lend  their 
money  to  support  it  professed  to  dislike  and  condemn,  and  had 
good  reason  for  disliking  and  condemning.  This  system  of  foreign 
loans  for  warlike  purposes,  Cobden  argued,  by  which  England, 
Holland,  Germany,  and  France  are  invited  to  pay  for  the  arms, 
clothing,  and  food  of  the  belligerents,  is  a  system  calculated  to 
perpetuate  the  horrors  of  war.  Those,  moreover,  who  lend  money 
for  such  purposes,  are  destitute  of  any  of  those  excuses  by  which 
men  justify  resort  to  the  sword.  They  cannot  plead  patriotism, 
self-defence,  or  even  anger,  or  the  lust  of  military  glory.  They 
sit  down  coolly  to  calculate  the  chances  to  themselves  of  profit  or 
^  loss  in  a  game  in  which  the  lives  of  human  beings  are  at  stake. 
They  have  not  even  the  savage  and  brutal  gratification  which  the 
old  pagans  had,  after  they  had  paid  for  a  seat  in  the  amphi- 
theatre, of  witnessing  the  bloody  combats  of  gladiators  in  the 
circus.^ 

It  is  impossible  not  to  admire  the  courage,  the  sound  sense,  and 
the  elevation,  with  which  Cobden  thus  strove  to  diffuse  the  notion 
of  moral  responsibility  in  connection  with  the  use  of  capital. 
Such  a  doctrine  was  a  novelty  even  in  the  pulpit,  and  much  more 
of  a  novelty  on  the  platform.  The  press,  which  never  goes  be- 
fore public  opinion  in  such  things,  and  usually  lags  a  little  way 

1  Speeches,  ii.  189. 


^T.46.]  THE  DON   PACIFICO   DEBATE.  357 

behind,  attacked  him  with  its  rudest  weapons.  The  City  resented 
the  intrusion  of  the  irrelevances  of  right  and  wrong  into  the  region 
of  scrip,  premium,  and  speculative  percentage.  Even  some  of  his 
own  friends  asked  him  why,  on  their  common  principles  of  Free 
Trade,  he  could  not  let  them  lend  their  money  in  the  dearest  mar- 
ket and  borrow  in  the  cheapest ;  why  there  was  not  to  be  Free 
Trade  in  money  as  in  everything  else.^  Few  reformers  find  the 
path  easy,  but  for  none  is  it  so  hard  as  for  him  who  introduces  a 
new  morality.  Cobden  could  not  flinch,  because  he  was  far- 
sighted  enough  to  perceive  that  the  destination  of  capital  be- 
comes more  vitally  important  in  proportion  as  society  becomes 
more  democratic.  Germany  is  an  instance  before  our  eyes  at  this 
moment  how,  with  modern  populations,  the  destruction  of  capital 
in  military  enterprises  breeds  Socialism.  As  population  increases, 
so  does  the  necessity  increase  of  wisely  husbanding  the  resources 
on  which  it  depends  for  subsistence.  As  political  power  now 
finds  its  way  from  the  few  to  the  masses,  so  much  the  more  urgent 
is  it  that  they  should  be  taught  to  see  how  detrimental  war  is  to 
them,  not  merely  because  it  destroys  human  life,  which  after  all 
is  cheap,  but  because  it  plays  havoc  with  the  material  instruments 
which  raise  or  maintain  that  no  less  momentous  object,  the  habit 
and  standard  of  living. 

Cobden's  urgent  feeling  about  war  was  not  in  any  degree  senti- 
mental ;  it  arose  from  a  truly  philosophic  view  of  the  peculiar 
requirements  which  the  changing  forces  and  condition  of  modern 
society  had  brought  with  them.  He  opposed  war,  because  war 
and  the  preparation  for  it  consumed  the  resources  which  were 
required  for  the  improvement  of  the  temporal  condition  of  the 
population.  Sir  Eobert  Peel  had  anticipated  him  in  pressing 
upon  Parliament  the  danger  to  European  order  arising  from 
military  expenditure.  Heavy  military  expenditure,  he  said, 
meant  heavy  taxation,  and  heavy  taxation  meant  discontent  and 
revolution.  That  wise  statesman  had  courageously  repudiated 
the  old  maxim,  Bellum  para  si  pacem  velis.  A  maxim  that  admits 
of  more  contradiction,  he  said,  or  one  that  should  be  received  with 
greater  reserve,  never  fell  from  the  lips  of  man.  What  is  always 
still  more  important,  Peel  was  not  afraid  to  say  that  it  is  in) possi- 
ble to  secure  a  country  against  all  conceivable  risks.     If  in  time 

1  "I  was  told  that  a  man  had  a  right  to  lend  his  money  without  inquiring  what 
it  was  wanted  for.  But  if  he  knew  it  was  wanted  for  a  vile  purpose,  had  he  a  right 
of  so  lending  it  ?  I  put  this  question  to  a  City  man  :  —  '  Somebody  asks  you  to 
lend  money  to  build  houses  with,  and  you  know  it  is  wanted  for  the  purpose  of 
building  infamous  houses  :  woulil  you  be  justified  in  lending  the  money  ? '  He  re- 
plied, '  I  would.'  I  rejoined,  '  Then  I  am  not  going  to  argue  with  you  —  you  are 
a  man  for  the  police  magistrate  to  look  after  ;  for  if  you  would  lend  money  to 
build  infamous  houses,  you  would  very  likely  keep  one  yourself  if  you  could  get 
ten  per  cent  by  it.'  "  —  Speeches,  ii.  418. 


J 


358  '  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1850. 

of  peace  you  insist  on  having  all  the  colonial  garrisons  up  to  the 
standard  of  complete  efiiciency,  and  if  every  fortification  is  to  be 
kept  in  a  state  of  perfect  repair,  then  no  amount  of  annual 
expenditure  can  ever  be  sufficient.  If  you  accept  the  opinions  of 
military  men,  who  tell  a  Minister  that  they  would  throw  upon 
him  the  whole  responsibility  in  the  event  of  a  war  breaking  out, 
and  predict  the  loss  of  this  or  the  other  valuable  possession,  then 
the  country  must  be  overwhelmed  by  taxation.  It  is  inevitable 
that  risks  should  be  run.  Peel's  declaration  was,  and  must  at  all 
times  remain,  the  language  of  common  sense,  and  it  furnishes  the 
key  to  Cobden's  characteristic  attitude  towards  a  whole  class  of 
political  questions  where  his  counsels  have  been  most  persistently 
disregarded.^ 

It  was  thus  from  the  political,  and  not  from  the  religious  or 

/  humanitarian  side,  that  Cobden  sought  to  arouse  men  to  the 
criminality  of  war.  If  an  unnecessary  war  is  a  crime,  then  to 
supply  the  funds  for  it,  even  for  the  sake  of  an  extra  fraction  per 
cent,  is  to  be  an  accessory  before  or  after  the  fact  in  that  crime. 
And  that  is  the  wise  and  timely  sermon  for  which  Cobden  took 
the  events  of  those  days  for  a  text.  In  the  case  of  land,  the  world 
was  quite  ready  to  recognize  the  truth,  that  property  has  its  duties 
as  well  as  its  rights.  Cobden's  view  on  the  morality  of  w^ar  loans 
extends  the  same  principle  to  the  whole  administration  of  prop- 
erty of  every  kind. 

Speculative  forecasts  of  this  sort  were  uncongenial  enough  to 
the  veteran  practitioner  at  the  Foreign  Office,  who  manipulated 
events  on  other  principles.  Things  were  now  moving  strangely 
counter  to  Cobden's  hopes.  When  Eussia  and  Austria  pressed 
for  the  surrender  of  the  Hungarian  refugees.  Lord  Palmerston  de- 
spatched the  fleet  to  the  Dardanelles  by  way  of  encouragement  to 
the  Porte  to  hold  firm.  According  to  Cobden,  this  was  a  superflu- 
ous display  of  force.  As  he  contended,  the  demands  of  Eussia  and 
Austria  had  been  already  withdrawn  in  face  of  a  vigorous  display 
of  the  public  opinion  of  Western  Europe.    What  is  certain  is  that 

\j  Lord  Palmerston's  action  at  this  time  laid  the  train  which  not 
long  afterwards  exploded  in  the  Crimean  War.  His  next  step 
was  exactly  calculated  to  embitter  the  chronic  struggle  between 
England,  France,  and  Eussia  in  the  East,  and  by  its  peculiar 
lawlessness  to  set  an  example,  which  was  sure  to  be  followed,  of 
the  worst  possible  w^ay  of  settling  international  difficulties.  There 
happened  to  be  certain  claims  which  the  British  Government  had 
for  a  long  time  been  pressing  against  the  kingdom  of  Greece. 
A  portion  of  these  claims  were  made  on  behalf  of  a  Portuguese 
Jew  from  Gibraltar,  whom  accident  of  domicile  made  a  British 

1  The  passage  from  Peel  was  quoted  by  Cobden,  SpeecTies,  ii.  414, 


-Six.  46.]  THE   DON   PACIFICO   DEBATE.  359 

subject,  and  after  him  the  whole  episode  has  been  known  as  the 
affair  of  Don  Pacifico.  What  Lord  Palmerston  did  was  to  despatch 
the  fleet  on  its  way  back  from  the  Dardanelles  to  the  Pirseus. 
There  it  detained  not  only  a  man-of-war  belonging  to  the  Greek  \^y^ 
Government,  but  a  number  of  merchant  vessels  owned  by  private 
individuals.  They  were  detained  as  material  guaranties.  There 
has  been  very  little  difference  of  opinion  since,  that  this  was  an 
intolerably  high-handed  proceeding.  As  is  observed  by  Finlay, 
the  sagacious  historian  of  Greece,  who  chanced  to  be  a  claimant, 
though  of  a  more  reputable  sort  than  Don  Pacifico,  no  Govern- 
ment in  a  civilized  state  of  society  can  be  allowed  to  have  a  right 
to  seize  private  property  belonging  to  the  subjects  of  another 
State,  or  to  blockade  the  port  of  another  State,  without  taking 
upon  itself  the  responsibility  of  declaring  war.^  Apart  from  this, 
it  was  a  direct  and  certain  provocation  to  two  Powers,  whom  it 
was  especially  our  interest  at  this  time  to  soothe  and  conciliate.^ 

France  interposed  with  the  proffer  of  good  offices,  and  they 
were  accepted.  But  Lord  Palmerston  so  blundered  and  misman- 
aged the  subsequent  negotiations,  that  at  one  moment  we  were 
brought  unpleasantly  near  to  a  rupture  with  the  French  Govern- 
ment, while  we  were  at  the  same  time  exposed  to  remonstrances 
from  Eussia,  of  which  the  most  mortifying  feature  was  that  they 
were  absolutely  and  unanswerably  well  founded  both  in  policy 
and  international  morality.  From  beginning  to  end,  alike  in  its 
inception  and  in  every  detail  of  it,  equally  in  its  purpose  and  its 
results,  it  was  probably  the  most  inept,  futile,  wrong-headed,  and  \/ 
gravely  mischievous  transaction  in  which  Lord  Palmerston's  reck- 
lessness ever  engaged  him. 

The   discussion  which   took  place  upon  these  doings  in  the    ^ 
House  of  Commons  really  covered  the  whole  of  Lord  Palmerston's 
policy,  and  the  spirit  and  the  principles  of  it.     Not  Sir  Eobert 
Peel  alone,  but  Mr.  Gladstone,  Mr.  Disraeli,  Sir  James  Graham, 
and    Cobden,    all    bore    with    overpowering    weight   against   the      / 
Minister,  not  only  for  his  impolitic  act  in  regard  to  Greece,  but   ^ 
for  his  intervention  in  Spain,  Portugal,  Switzerland,  and  every- 

^  See  Mr.  Finlay 's  story  of  the  whole  transaction  in  his  most  valuable  Hisl.  of 
Greece,  vii.  211,  &c.  Mr.  Finlay's  verdict  is  that  "the  whole  afair  reflects  very 
little  credit  on  any  of  the  Governments  that  took  part  in  it." 

'^  "I  conceive,"  said  Sir  Robert  Peel,  "that  there  was  an  obvious  mode  of  set- 
tling the  claims  without  otiending  France,  and  without  provoking  a  rebuke  from 
Russia.  My  belief  is  that,  without  any  compromise  of  your  own  dignity,  you  might 
have  got  the  whole  money  you  demanded,  and  avoided  the  difficulties  in  which  you 
have  involved  yourselves  with  these  Powers.  "With  regard  to  Russia,  you  had  just 
asserted  the  authority  of  England  by  remonstrating  with  her  for  attempting  to  expel 
ten  refugees  from  Turkey.  She  acquiesced  in  your  demands  ;  and  with  regard  to 
France  you  had  all  but'  the  certainty  of  obtaining  her  cordial  sympathy  and  good 
feeling.  There  never  was  a  period  in  which  it  was  more  the  interest  of  this  country 
to  conciliate  the  good  feelitig  of  Russia  and  France." — Speech  in  the  Don  Pacifico 
Debate,  June  28.     Hansard^  cxii.  683. 


360  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1850. 

where  else.  Lord  Palmerston  defended  himself  from  the  dusk  of 
one  day  until  the  dawn  of  another  with  an  energy  and  skill  which 
commanded  the  admiration  even  of  those  who  thought  worst  of 
his  case.  He  was  supported  by  Mr.  Cockburn,  afterwards  the 
brilliant  Chief  Justice  of  our  time,  in  a  speech  which  is  undeniably 
one  of  the  most  glittering  and  successful  pieces  of  advocacy  ever 
heard  either  in  forum  or  senate.  It  is  only  when  we  turn  to  the 
real  facts  and  the  sober  reason  of  the  case,  that  we  perceive  that 
the  fine  things  and  impassioned  turns  of  this  striking  performance 
were  in  truth  no  better  than  heroics  for  the  jury  and  superb  clap- 
trap.i  Half-a-dozen  of  Sir  Robert  Peel's  sober  sentences  in  his 
reply  —  the  last  speech  that  he  ever  made  —  were  enough  to  over- 
throw the  whole  gorgeous  fabric. 

The  issues  were  broadly  and  unmistakably  placed.  Whether 
in  defendiiig  the  rights  of  British  subjects  abroad,  or  in  other 
dealings  with  foreign  nations,  the  Minister  of  this  country  ought 
to  seek  his  end  by  politic  and  conciliatory  means,  or  go  rudely  to 
it  by  violence  and  armed  force  ?  Whether  it  is  his  business  to 
interfere  with  lectures  or  with  ships  in  the  domestic  affairs  of 
other  countries,  even  on  the  side  of  self-government  ?  Whether 
he  should  seek  and  manufacture  occasions  for  intervention,  or 
should  on  the  contrary  be  too  slow  rather  than  too  quick  in 
recognizing  even  such  occasions  as  arise  of  themselves  ?  Whether 
interference  should  be  frequent,  peremptory,  and  at  any  cost,  or 
should  on  the  contrary  be  "  rare,  deliberate,  decisive  in  character, 
and  effectual  for  its  end "  ?  ^  Whether  England  should  make 
light  of  the  restraints  of  the  law  of  nations,  pushing  the  claim  of 
the  Civis  Bonianus  with  a  high  and  unflinching  hand,  or  should 
on  the  contrary  by  her  strictness  of  care  and  scruple  fortify  and 
enlarge  that  domain  which  justice  and  peace  have  already  ac- 
quired for  themselves  among  the  brotherhood  of  nations  ?  Such 
were  the  topics  and  the  issues  of  the  controversy.  The  victory 
was  to  the  old  idols  of  the  tribe  and  the  market-place.     The  for- 

1  As  Cobden  left  the  House  after  Mr.  Cockburn's  speech,  he  was  joined  by  Mr. 
Disraeli.  "I  call  yours,"  he  said  to  Cobden,  "the  Manchester  School  of  Oratory  ; 
and  I  call  his  the  Crown  and  Anchor  School."  *  Cobden  was  never  a  great  admirer 
of  the  eloquent  lawyer.  The  first  occasion  on  which  they  met  was  at  a  dinner- 
party during  the  height  of  the  League  agitation.  "He  took  the  Protectionists' 
side,"  said  Cobden,  "and  we  had  a  long  wrangle  before  the  whole  company.  As  I 
was  top-sawyer  on  that  plank,  I  had  no  difficulty  in  flinging  him  pretty  often." 
They  met  again  at  dinner  the  very  day  after  the  Pacifico  division.  Sir  Alexander 
Cockburn  permitted  himself  to  use  some  of  those  asperities  —  Cobden  called  them 
by  a  more  stinging  name  —  which  the  sworn  party-man  is  apt  to  use  against  a  con- 
scientious dissident.  He  told  Cobden  that  he  ought  to  be  turned  out  of  the  Reform 
Club.  But  Cobden  was  always  able  to  hold  his  own  against  impertinence,  and  the 
advocate  took  little  by  his  motion. 

2  Mr.  Gladstone's  description. 

♦  Cobden  to  J.  Parkes,  Nov.  23,  1856. 


..^^■ 


iET.46.]  THE  DON   PACIFICO   DEBATE.  361 

eign  policy  of  Lord  Palmerston  was  approved,  and  its  author  en- 
couraged, by  a  majority  of  six  and  forty. 

The  effect  of  this  remarkable  debate  was  very  great.  It  is  true  \^ 
that  it  was'  not  wholly  a  debate  on  the  merits.  Under  govern- 
ment by  parties,  a  debate  wholly  on  the  merits  is  very  uncommon. 
The  question  nominally  at  issue  was  mixed  up  with  suspicion  of, 
a  French  diplomatic  conspiracy,  and  belief  in  a  Protectionist  in-- 
trigue.  The  public  was  indignant  that  a  domestic  faction  should 
lend  itself  for  purposes  of  its  own  to  a  cabal  of  foreigners  against 
a  Minister  who  had  been  too  clever  for  them.  It  is  true,  also, 
that  when  we  talk  of  the  public  during  these  years,  the  phrase 
does  not  designate  the  nation  at  large,  even  in  the  limited  sense 
in  which  it  does  this  now.  In  every  epoch  the  political  public  ^ 
really  means  the  people  who  have  votes,  and  at  that  time  the 
people  who  had  votes  were  an  extremely  small  fraction  of  the  na- 
tion at  large.  When  that  is  said,  however,  there  is  very  little  doubt 
that  the  language  which  Lord  Palmerston  used  on  this  occasion 
was  the  language  which  the  majority  of  Englishmen  were  not 
sorry  to  hear,  and  would  not  be  likely  to  repudiate  when  it  had 
been  boldly  spoken.  The  day  after  the  Don  Pacifico  debate,  Lord 
Palmerston  was  justified  in  speaking  of  himself  as  having  been 
rendered  by  it  the  most  popular  Minister  that  for  a  very  long 
time  had  held  his  office.^ 

The  confusion  of  parties  made  this  sudden  exaltation  of  Lord 
Palmerston  a  very  important  event,  and  we  may  believe  that  he 
was  quite  alive  to  the  possibilities  which  it  opened  to  his  ambition. 
Public  life,  as  was  said,  was  divided  at  that  particular  moment 
between  statesmen  without  a  party  and  a  party  without  states- 
men. Lord  Derby  and  Mr.  Disraeli  had  made  a  bold  bid  for 
power,  but  Lord  Palmerston  foresaw  that  they  could  not  keep  it 
if  they  got  it.  The  reforming  Whigs  of  the  type  of  Lord  John 
Ptussell  had  been  steadily  losing  ground  ever  since  tlieir  brilliant 
triumph  twenty  years  before,  and  they  were  now  lower  in  popular 
influence  than  they  had  ever  been.  The  Manchester  school  were 
out  of  the  question.  There  was  one  statesman  only  whose  au- 
thority, and  the  clearness  of  whose  convictions,  might  have'  :. 
balked  Lord  Palmerston's  rise,  and  have  saved  the  country  from  { 
the  demoralization  of  the  Palmerstonian  reign.  This  statesman, 
by  a  most  disastrous  destiny,  met  his  death  the  very  day  after 
he  had  protested  with  all  the  cogent  sagacity  of  his  ripened  ex- 
perience against  Lord  Palmerston's  unsafe  policy,  and  his  mis- 
taken impressions  of  the  honor  and  dignity  of  the  country. 

The  death  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  may  without  exaggeration  be  de-  y 
scribed  as  one  of  the  most  untoward  incidents  in  Cobden's  public 

i  Mr.  Ashley's  Life^  ii.  161. 


362  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1850. 

life,  as  it  was  a  dire  and  irreparable  loss  to  tlie  country.  Cobden 
was  instantly  alive  to  the  calamity.  "  Poor  Peel,"  he  wrote  three 
days  after  the  event,  "  I  have  scarcely  yet  realized  to  my  mind 
the  conviction  that  he  will  never  again  occupy  his  accustomed 
seat  opposite  to  my  place  in  the  House.  I  sat  with  him  on  Sjat- 
urday  till  two  o'clock  in  the  Eoyal  Commission  ^ —  the  last  public 
business  in  which  he  was  engaged  —  and  in  four  hours  afterwards 
he  received  his  mortal  stroke.  We  do  not  yet  know  the  full  ex- 
tent of .  our  loss.  It  will  be  felt  in  the  state  of  parties  and  in  the 
progress  of  public  business  to  its  full  extent  hereafter.  I  liad 
observed  his  tendencies  most  attentively  during  the  last  few  years, 
and  had  felt  convinced  that  on  questions  in  which  I  take  a  great 
interest,  such  as  the  reduction  of  armaments,  retrenchment  of  ex- 
penditure, the  diffusion  of  peace  principles,  etc.,  he  had  strong 
sympathies  —  stronger  than  he  had  yet  expressed  —  in  favor  of 
my  views.  Eead  his  last  speech  again,  and  observe  what  he  says 
about  diplomacy,  and  in  favor  of  settling  international  disputes 
^   by  reference  to  mediation  instead  of  by  ships  of  war."  ^ 

If  the  Don  Pacifico  debate  in  Parliament  gave  a  check  to  the 
confidence  of  Cobden's  aspirations,  a  storm  which  burst  out  over 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land  a  few  months  later  still  more 
effectually  chilled  his  faith  in  the  hold  of  good  sense  and  the 
spirit  of  tolerance  upon  the  minds  of  his  countrymen.  In  the 
autumn  of  1850,  Great  Britain  was  convulsed  by  the  tempest  of 
the  Papal  Aggression,  which  now  loroks  none  the  less  repulsive 
because  we  can  see  to  what  a  degree  it  was  ludicrous.  Unfortu- 
nately Lord  John  Kussell  lent  himself  to  the  prejudices  and  alarms 
which  are  so  instantly  roused  in  the  minds  of  Englishmen  and 
Scotchmen  by  anything  that  reminds  them  of  the  existence  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  He  fanned  the  flame  by  a  letter  to 
the  Bishop  of  Durham,  which  has  as  conspicuous  a  place  among 
his  acts  and  monuments  as  the  letter  from  Edinburgh  in  1845. 
In  a  damaging  moment  for  his  position  at  this  time,  as  w^ell  as 
V^  for  his  future  political  reputation,  he  brought  in  and  passed  a 
measure,  as  much  to  be  blamed  for  the  bigotry  which  inspired  it, 
as  for  the  futility  of  its  provisions.  The  effect  in  the  balanced 
state  of  parties  was  to  give  an  irretrievable  shake  to  his  Adminis- 
tration, for  his  wdlling  concessions  to  the  bigotry  of  England  aud 
Scotland  kindled  the  just  resentment  of  Ireland.  The  Irish  vote 
was  indispensable  to  every  Whig  Ministry  since  the  Reform  Bill, 
and  this  was  now  alienated  from  the  Government  of  Lord  John 
Russell.  Its  fall  could  only  be  a  matter  of  a  few  months,  and 
was  only  delayed  even  for  that  short  time  by  the  difficulty  of 

1  The  Commission  for  the  Great  Exhibition  of  1851. 

2  To  G.  Hadfield,  July  5,  1850. 


^T.46.]  THE  PAPAL  AGGRESSION.  363 

finding  or  devising  a  political  combination  that  should  take  its 
place. 

The  following  extracts  from  his  correspondence  will  show  what 
Cobden  was  doing  and  thinking  about  between  the  winter  of  1849 
and  the  winter  of  1851 :  — 

"  Leeds,  Dec.  18, 1849.  {To  Mrs.  Cobden)  —  I  have  received  your 
despatches ;  don't  trouble  yourself  to  send  the  proofs  of  the 
speeches.  I  am  staying  with  Mrs.  Carbutt,  who  has  taken  me 
from  Mr.  Schofield  and  Mr.  Marshall.  In  fact,  judging  by  the 
competition  that  there  was  for  me,  I  am  rather  at  a  premium.  The 
meetijig  this  evening  promises  to  be  a  very  full  and  influential 
one.  I  wish  it  was  over,  for  I  am  sorely  perplexed  at  these 
demonstrations,  for  want  of  something  fresh  to  say." 

'^  Leeds,  Dec.  19.  (  „  )  — We  had  a  most  thoroughly  success- 
ful meeting  last  evening,  and  I  spoke  with  tolerably  good  effect, 
but  I  am  not  sure  that  I  shall  not  appear  in  the  reports  to  have 
been  rather  rough  with  the  landlords.  At  all  events,  I  expect  the 
Protectionists  will  raise  a  fierce  howl  at  me." 

"  Bradford,  Dec.  21.  —  We  had  a  very  successful  meeting  here 
last  evening,  and  I  made  a  speech  upon  the  Colonies,  which  I 
hope  will  be  freely  reported,  for  it  is  my  opinion  that  it  went 
pretty  fully  into  the  arguments,  and  is  calculated  to  diffuse  sound 
information  upon  the  subject.  The  people  here  have  resolved  to 
republish  it  for  cheap  distribution." 

'^  April  18.  {To  James  Mellor.)  —  I  observed  in  a  paper  the 
other  day  an  account  of  the  interference  of  our  Admiral  on  the 
South  American  station  for  the  purpose  of  demanding  the  settle- 
ment of  certain  claims  made  by  creditors  upon  the  Government 
of  Venezuela.  The  account  stated  that  the  demand  included  the 
payment  of  money  due  for  Loans.  My  object  in  writing  is  to 
ask  whether  you  can  ascertain  for  me  through  any  house  having 
relations  there,  whether  the  claim  of  the  Stock  Exchange  creditors 
was  included.  I  consider  these  debts  to  be  totally  different  from 
those  due  to  merchants  for  property  in  the  form  of  merchandise 
sold  to  foreign  states,  or  for  goods  seized  unjustly  in  time  of 
hostilities.  Money  le7it  through  the  Stock  Exchange  is  generally 
advanced  on  such  terms  as  to  cover  known  risks  of  repudiation, 
etc.  Besides,  the  money  is  advanced  by 'foreigners  even  when  the 
loan  is  nominally  contracted  in  England,  and  the  result  of  our 
Government  becoming  the  collectors  of  such  debts  would  be  that\./ 
we  should  be  made  the  bumbailiffs  of  half  a  dozen  nations  besides 
our  own.  I  am  watching  very  jealously  any  step  of  the  kind, 
because,  if  the  principle  be  once  adopted,  it  is  not  easy  to  see 
where  we  can  stop.  If  we  are  to  blockade  the  coast  of  a  South 
American  State,  how  can  we  refuse  the  creditors  of  the  repudiat- 
ing State  of  Mississippi  to  blockade  the  port  of  New  Orleans  ? 


364  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1850. 

There  will  be  obvious  disgrace  as  well  as  injustice  in  dealing 
differently  with  weak  and  with  powerful  States." 

"April  18.  (To  Mr.  Bi^ight)  —  Look  in  the  money  article  of 
the  Ti7Res  to-day.  The  creditors  of  the  Spanish  Government  are 
talking  of  petitioning  Parliament  to  collect  their  debts.  We  must 
watch  with  jealousy  the  first  attempt  of  this  kind,  and  be  prepared 
to  agitate  against  it.  Did  you  see  the  report  in  the  papers  that 
the  Admiral  on  the  South  American  station  had  demanded  the 
debts  due  to  English  creditors  of  the  Government  of  Venezuela  ? 
I  am  anxious  to  know  whether  the  Stock  Exchange  loans  are  in- 
cluded in  the  claims.  Do  you  know  anybody  in  the  City  who 
would  inform  us  ?  " 

"  April  23.  (  „  )  —  It  seems  that  there  is  —  if  we  may 
judge  of  the  article  in  to-day's  Tiraes  —  a  prospect  of  still  further 
delay  about  the  Greek  affair.  Would  it  not  be  well  to  draw  up  a 
memorial  to  the  Prime  Minister,  or  else  a  petition  to  Parliament 
upon  the  subject  ?  The  object,  of  course,  should  be  to  show  the 
propriety  of  submitting  the  whole  affair  to  the  arbitration  of  dis- 
V  interested  parties.  It  is  just  the  case  for  arbitration.  And  the 
memorial  should  speak  in  terms  of  strong  condemnation  of  a 
system  of  International  Policy,  which  leaves  the  possibility  of  two 
nations  being  brought  to  such  a  state  of  hostility  upon  questions 
of  such  insignificant  importance.  Here  is  a  dispute  about  a  few 
thousand  pounds  or  of  personal  insult,  matters  which  might  be 
equitably  adjusted  by  two  or  three  impartial  individuals  of  aver- 
age intelligence  and  character,  for  the  settlement  of  which  a  fleet 
of  line-of-battle  ships  has  been  put  in  requisition,  and  the  entire 
commerce  of  a  friendly  nation  largely  engaged  in  trade  with  our 
own 'people  has  been  for  months  subjected  to  interruption.  It 
should  be  stated  that,  apart  from  the  outrage  which  such  proceed- 
ings are  calculated  to  inflict  upon  the  feelings  of  humanity  and 
justice,  they  must  tend  to  bring  diplomacy  into  disrepute.  With- 
out offering  any  opinion  on  the  merits  of  the  question,  you  should 
pray  that  our  Government  should  agree  at  once  to  submit  the 
whole  matter  to  the  absolute  decision  of  arbitrators  mutually  ap- 
pointed, and  it  might  be  added  that  this  case  affords  a  strong 
argument  for  entering  upon  a  general  system  of  arbitration  trea- 
ties, by  whicli  such  great  inconveniences  and  dangers  springing 
from  such  trivial  causes  may  be  averted  for  the  future.  It  seems 
to  me  that  this  is  an  occasion  on  which  you  might  frame  a  very 
\^/  practical  memorial,  and  thus  put  the  present  system  in  the  wrong- 
in  the  eyes  of  even  those  men  of  business  and  politicians  who  do 
not  go  with  you  on  principle." 

"July  2.  (To  Mrs.  Cobden.)  —  I  am  getting  famously  abused  for 
my  vote  on  Roebuck's  Motion,  but  I  never  felt  more  satisfied  than 
I  do  on  the  course  I  took.     The  accounts  of  poor  Peel's  health 


JEt.  46.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  365 

are  very  unsatisfactory.  I  fear  very  much  the  worst.  It  would 
be  a  great  national  calamity  to  lose  him,  and  with  liim  we  should 
lose  the  best  safeguard,  if  not  the  only  one  amongst  statesmen, 
against  a  reaction  at  headquarters  from  Free  Trade  to  Protec- 
tion." 

"  July  4  (  „  )  —  You  will  have  seen  the  sad  news  of  Sir 
E.  Peel's  death.  I  have  not  been  able  to  think  of  anything  since. 
Poor  soul,  his  health  had  been  sacrificed  by  his  sufferings  in  the 
cause  of  Free  Trade,  and  he  may  be  said  to  have  died  a  victim  to 
the  best  act  of  his  political  life.  I  should  not  like  to  be  in  the 
position  of  those  who  by  their  unsparing  hostility  inflicted  martyr- 
dom upon  him." 

At  the  close  of  the  Session,  Cobden  proceeded  to  the  Peace 
Congress,  which  this  year  was  held  at  Frankfort. 

"Cologne,  Aug.  17.  (To  Mrs.  Cohden.)  —  My  companions  and  I 
reached  the  station  just  in  time  to  catch  the  train,  and  we  reached 
Dover  without  further  adventure.  There  we  found  that  the  wind 
had  been  blowing  hard  for  a  couple  of  days,  so  much  so  tlmt  the 
mail  of  the  previous  night  from  Calais  was  several  hours  behind 
its  time.  This  was  not  a  very  agreeable  prospect.  Our  boat  was 
fixed  to  start  for  Ostend  at  eleven  at  night,  and  so,  after  taking 
some  long  walks  about  the  town  and  neiohborhood,  we  took  a 
comfortable  dinner  at  six.  At  nine  o'clock  the  boat  was  obliged 
to  leave  the  harbor,  and  cast  anchor  outside  to  save  the  tide.  We 
went  aboard  with  our  luggage,  and  for  upwards  of  two  hours  we 
were  rocking  at  anchor  in  a  heavy  swell.  I  lay  down  on  my  back 
in  the  cabin  (for  there  were  no  berths),  which,  as  soon  as  the 
mail-train  arrived  at  eleven  with  the  passengers,  was  full  of 
people,  and  I  never  had  a  more  uncomfortable  night.  I  lay  in  one 
posture  till  we  had  fairly  cast  anchor  in  the  port  of  Ostend,  with 
my  bones  and  flesh  aching  as  if  I  had  been  beaten.  On  opening 
my  eyes  and  sitting  up  I  found  that  my  next  neighbor  was  Count 

A ,  who  had  passed  a  terrible  night,  and  who  looked  anything 

but  the  Adonis  he  strives  to  appear  in  the  drawing-room.  We 
started  from  Ostend  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  got  to 
Cologne  at  nine  at  night,  where  we  found  ourselves  with  all  the 
discomfort  of  reaching  a  strange  town  without  knowing  the  lan- 
guage, and  the  little  contretemps  at  the  baggage-office  upset  my 
temper.  The  trials  of  my  temper  were  increased  when,  on  driving 
with  an  omnibus-load  of  fellow-passengers  to  the  best  hotel,  we 
found  there  not  a  bed  to  be  had,  and  so  we  had  to  hunt  about  the 
town  till  nearly  ten  o'clock,  when  we  took  refuge  in  a  not  first- 
rate  hotel;  the  dining-room,  where  we  took  a  cup  of  tea,  was  filled 
with  Germans,  with  beards  on  their  chins  and  pipes  in  their 
mouths,  playing  cards  and  dbminoes.  However,  a  night's  rest  lias 
restored  my  equanimity  again.     The  crowd  of  travellers,  particu- 


366  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1850. 

larly  English,  exceeds  all  past  experience.  It  is  lucky  for  me  that 
I  have  a  comfortable  reception  awaiting  me  at  Frankfort." 

"  Fratikfort,  Aug.  23.  (  „  )  —  We  yesterday  held  our  first 
sitting  of  the  Congress,  in  the  same  place  where  the  German  Par- 
liament assembled.  It  is  a  large  church  of  a  semicircular  form, 
newly  fitted  up  and  decorated  with  flags,  and  capable  of  holding 
3000  persons.  It  was  well  filled  during  the  day.  The  number  of 
delegates  and  visitors  to  the  Congress  is  about  500  or  600 ;  but 
by  far  the  largest  portion  are  English.  However,  we  have  some 
good  names  from  France.  Cormenin  (Conseiller  d'Etat)  and  Emile 
de  Girardin  are  both  here,  and  spoke  yesterday.  Cormenin  read 
a  speech  full  of  point,  as  everything  is  which  comes  from  his  pen. 
Amongst  other  'spiritual'  things,  he  said,  'There  is  one  thing 
which  all  will  admit  to  be  far  more  impossible  than  the  putting 
an  end  to  war,  viz.  to  put  an  end  to  death,  and  why  should  we  not 
use  half  as  much  exertion  to  escape  war  as  to  escape  death  ? ' 

"  Strange  to  say,  we  had  Haynau,  the  Austrian  general,  sitting 
in  the  meeting.  He  is  staying  at  a  hotel  here.  I  took  the  oppor- 
tunity, in  my  speech,  of  alluding  to  the  fact  of  having  met  him 
and  Klapka  at  the  two  last  peace  meetings  I  had  attended.  He 
is  a  tall  man,  with  a  pair  of  white  mustaches,  which  come  down 
to  his  shoulders.  His  aspect  is  not  prepossessing.  I  suspect 
there  is  some  truth  in  the  remark  of  a  lady  of  Pesth,  who  ex- 
pressed an  opinion  that  he  was  not  always  in  his  right  senses. 
Upon  the  whole,  I  am  very  well  satisfied  with  the  meeting.  We 
are  gaining  ground." 

''Nov.  9.  {To  G.  Combe}) —  I  am  afraid  you  overrate  the  impor- 
tance of  our  Manchester  educational  conference.^  The  difficulties 
/  in  the  way  of  success  are  not  much  diminished  since  I  wrote  to 
^  you  to  excuse  my  apparent  apathy.  I  want  standing-ground  for 
the  House  of  Commons.  At  present  the  Liberal  party,  the  soul 
of  which  is  Dissent,  are  torn  to  pieces  by  the  question,  and  it  is 
not  easy  to  heal  a  religious  feud.  The  Tories,  whatever  they  may 
say  to  the  contrary,  are  at  heart  opposed  to  the  enlightenment  of 
the  people.  They  are  naturally  so  from  an  instinct  of  self-preser- 
vation. They  will  therefore  seek  every  pretence  for  opposing  us. 
If  I  could  say  I  represented  the  Eadical  party  or  any  other  party 

i  Cobden  had  no  sooner  returned  from  the  Peace  Congress  thnn  he  threw  himself 
once  more  into  the  long  and  intricate  struggle  for  Nationftl  Education.  He  went 
to  the  most  important  centres  of  population,  where  he  sought  private  interviews 
with  bodies  of  men  who  were  interested  in  the  question,  procuring  a  full  and  free 
discussion  of  vexed  topics  which  were  usually  conducted  with  the  heat  and  bitter- 
ness peculiar  to  sectarian  quarrels.  The  Churchmen  had  moved  a  step  forward  ; 
they  no  longer  claimed  a  monopoly  of  grants  from  the  State  :  they  now  proposed 
that  all  the  denominations  should  receive  public  money  for  their  religious  teaching. 
It  was  a  proposal,  as  Cobden  said,  by  which,  everybody  should  be  called  upon  to 
pay  for  the  religious  teaching  of  everybody  else.  This  led  to  the  conference  at 
Manchester,  January  22,  1851. 


^T.  46.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  367 

upon  the  question,  I  should  have  some  standing-ground  in  the 
House.  But  the  greatest  of  all  causes  has  no  locus  standi  in  Par- 
liament. I  thought  I  had  given  time  to  Mr.  Baines  and  his  dis- 
senting friends  to  get  cool  upon  the  subject.  But  they  appear  to 
be  as  hot  as  ever.  However,  I  shall  now  go  straight  at  the  mark, 
and  shall  neither  give  nor  take  quarter.  I  have  made  up  my  ,  / 
mind  to  go  for  the  Massachusetts  system  as  nearly  as  we  can  get 
it.i  You  would  be  puzzled  at  my  objecting  to  the  word  '  secular.' 
If  I  had  seen,  before  I  spoke  upon  the  subject,  that  the  word 
occurred  again  in  the  body  of  the  resolution,  I  should  not  have 
taken  the  objection ;  for,  after  all,  the  words  of  Shakespeare, 
'What 's  in  a  name  V  apply  very  much  to  this  case.     We  all  mean  > 

the  same  thing,  to  teach  the  people  something  necessary  for  their  \/^ 
well-being,  which  the  ministers  of  religion  do  7iot  teach  them.  I  per- 
ceive  a  difficulty  in  arguing  the  case  if  we  profess  to  exclude  the 
Bible  from  all  schools.  I  would  rather  take  the  Massachusetts 
ground,  and  say  that  no  book  shall  be  admitted  into  the  schools 
which  favors  the  doctrines  of  any  particular  religious  sect;  but  tliis 
in  a  Protestant  country  could  hardly  be  said  to  include  the  Bible. 
In  the  Lancashire  public  school  plan,  it  was  proposed  to  have 
extracts  from  the  Scriptures  only,  and  tliis  was  the  best  mode  of 
meeting  the  difficulty  in  a  county  where  there  are  so  many  Eoman 
Catholics. .  But  this  is  very  different  from  the  case  of  Eutland, 
where  there  is  not  probably  a  Catholic,  and  certainly  more  than 
half  the  parishes  of  England  and  Wales  are  in  the  same  predica- 
ment. Still  I  do  not  shut  my  eyes  to  the  fact  that  we  shall  be 
accused  of  teaching  religion,  just  as  certainly  as  we  should  be 
charged  with  irreligion  if  we  excluded  the  Bible.  However,  there 
is  the  Massacliusetts  plan  and  its  effects  to  fall  back  upon,  and 
we  must  trust  to  time  and  discussion  to  put  matters  right  in  this 
country." 

''Manchester,  Thursday,  Nov.  22.  {To  Mr.  Bright)  —  I  have 
come  over  here  to  attend  a  private  meeting  of  the  School  Com- 
mittee, and  shall  go  to  Birmingham  to-morrow  to  pass  a  day  or 
two  with  Sturge,  and  see  Chance's  glass-works,  and  Fox  and  Hen- 
derson's establishment.  I  hope  you  will  come  to  Birmingham  and 
attend  both  the  Freehold  Land  Society  and  the  Peace  Meeting,  if 
for  no  other  purpose,  to  let  the  fools  and  knaves  who  are  raising 
this  Guy  Fawkes  outcry,  know  that  there  are  people  in  the  coun- 
try who  are  thinking  of  something  more  important  than  the 
Queen's  spiritual  supremacy. 

^  That  is  to  say  education  provided  from  local  rates,  free,  compulsory^,  and  secu- 
lar in  the  sense  of  excluding  books  that  teach  the  doctrine  of  any  particular  sect. 
The  plan  which  Cobden  favored  was  after  twenty  years  of  lost  time  practically 
accepted,  with  the  important  exception  that  elementary  instruction  is  not  yet 
gratuitous. 


368  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1851. 

"I  should  like  you  to  speak  against  the  consecrating  of  the 
banners,  and,  if  you  found  your  audience  all  right,  it  would  be  a 
glorious  thing  to  be  able  to  rebuke  the  Protestant  bigots,  and  say 
a  word  for  the  religious  rights  of  a  fourth  of  the  population  of  the 
Empire.  What  a  disgusting  display  is  this  Cockney  No-Popery 
cry,  headed  by  Johnny  Eussell,  who  bids  fair  to  close  his  political 
career  in  the  character  of  a  religious  persecutor.  The  end  of  it 
will  be  a  reaction  in  favor  of  the  Eoman  Catholics,  and  increased 
strength  to  their  priesthood,  which  I  don't  wish  to  see.  In  the 
mean  time  the  old  sore  is  opened  in  Ireland,  and  there  is  a  new 
lease  for  Guy  Fawkes,  and  the  '  Immortal  memory,'  —  and  my 
cynical  brother  will  be  confirmed  in  his  doctrine  that  we  are, 
after  all,  not  progressive  creatures,  but  only  revolving  in  a  circle 
of  instincts.  Verily  we  have  not  made  great  strides  during  the 
last  two  centuries  in  relic^ious  toleration." 

"Feb.  15.  {To  J.  St  urge.)  —  Is  there  no  way  of  bringing  out  a 
declaration  from  the  friends  of  religious  equality  in  Birmingham 
against  the  Whig  Bill  for  inflicting  pains  and  penalties  upon  the 
Eoman  Catholics  ?  Birmingham  was  the  first  to  give  a  check  to 
the  public  meetings  in  the  North.  Could  it  not  have  the  honor 
of  taking  the  lead  in  promulgating  a  sound  declaration  of  opinion 
against  all  interference  by  the  legislature  in  the  religious  concerns 
of  the  people  ?  I  should  like  to  see  a  declaration  put  forth  repu- 
diating the  rights  of  the  Parliament  to  encourage  by  temporal 
];ewards,  or  to  discourage  by  temporal  penalties,  the  progress  of 
any  religious  opinions.  Surely  the  mass  of  the  people  of  Birming- 
ham are  favorable  to  this  principle ;  it  is  in  fact  the  principle  of 
religious  liberty  which  all  parties  profess  to  advocate,  but  so  few 
are  prepared  to  practise.  Suppose  you  were  to  call  a  few  friends 
together  and  take  their  advice  as  to  whether  anything  can  be 
done.  We  are  going  back  rapidly  in  the  House,  and  unless 
helped  from  without,  our  case  is  hopeless." 

"  London,  Feb.  19.  (  „  )  —  I  expect  that  this  Nc-Popery  cry 
will  prove  fatal  to  the  Ministry.  It  is  generally  thought  that  the 
Government  will  be  in  a  minority  on  some  important  question, 
probably  the  income-tax,  in  less  than  a  fortnight.  The  Irish 
Catholic  members  are  determined  to  do  everything  to  turn  out 
Lord  John.  Indeed,  Ireland  is  in  such  a  state  of  exasperation 
with  the  Whigs,  that  no  Irish  member  having  a  Catholic  constit- 
uency will  have  a  chance  of  being  elected  again  unless  he  votes 
through  thick  and  thin  to  upset  the  Ministry.  We  may  have  a 
dissolution  this  spring,  and  if  either  party  should  be  wicked 
enough  to  raise  the  No-Popery  cry,  Heaven  only  knows  what  the 
result  may  be.  One  thing  is  certain ;  the  Irish  Catholics  will 
send  none  but  Catholics,  and  they  will  hold  the  balance  of  power 
in  the  House,  and  if  they  were  sixty  Quakers  instead  of  Irish 


iET.47.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  369 

Catholics,  they  would  dictate  terms  to  any  Ministry.  This  unset- 
tled state  of  parties  makes  it  more  important  that  we  should  raise 
the  banner  of  religious  equality." 

"  Feb.  25.  {To  J.  Parkes.)  —  The  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill  is  the 
real  cause  of  the  upset  of  the  Whig  coach,  or  rather  of  the  coach- 
man leaping  from  the  box  to  escape  an  upset.^  This  measure 
cannot  be  persevered  in  by  any  Government  so  far  as  Ireland  is 
concerned,  for  no  Government  can  exist,  if  fifty  Irish  members  are 
pledged  to  vote  against  them  under  all  circumstances  when  they 
are  in  danger.  A  dissolution  would  give  at  least  fifty  members  to 
do  that  work,  and  they  would  be  all  watched  as  they  are  now  by 
their  constituents.  Probably  a  bishop  or  two  would  be  sent  up  to 
town  to  keep  them  in  the  true  fold,  and  see  that  they  did  not  fall 
into  the  hands  of  the  Treasury  shepherd. 

"  This  mode  of  fighting  by  means  of  adverse  votes  in  the  House 
is  far  more  difficult  to  deal  with  by  our  aristocratic  rulers  than 
was  the  plan  of  O'Connell  when  he  called  his  monster  meetings. 
They  could  be  stopped  by  a  proclamation,  or  put  down  by  soldiers, 
but  neither  of  these  modes  will  avail  in  the  House.  What  folly 
it  was  to  give  a  real  representation  to  the  Irish  counties,  and  to 
think  of  still  maintaining  the  old  persecuting  ascendency.^ 

"  I  do  not  see  how  Lord  John  and  the  Whigs  are  to  recover  from 
the  false  position  into  which  they  have  been  flung  by  his  letter 
and  his  speech.  They  have  traded  for  the  last  fifteen  years  as  a 
political  party  upon  Irish  questions ;  but  now  that  capital  is  ex- 
hausted. Even  if  they  withdrew  their  measure,  which  is  hardly 
possible,  it  would  not  restore  them  to  the  confidence  of  the  Irish. 
They  are  in  a  regular  mess,  and  I  do  not  see  any  way  out  of  it  for 
them.  It  is  understood  that  Graham  refuses  to  join  the  Whigs. 
He  is  against  the  Papal  outcry,  and  walked  out  of  the  House  on 
the  first  reading. 

"  Now  all  this  is  a  good  ground  for  your  getting  up  a  demon- 
stration against  the  Bill.     It  must  be  withdrawn,  whether  you 

1  Ministers  were  defeated  on  a  private  member's  Bill  to  lower  the  county  fran- 
chise to  10^.,  which  they  opposed.  On  Feb.  22,  it  was  announced  that  Lord  John 
Russell  had  resigned.  Lord  Stanley  was  sent  for,  but  gave  up  the  task.  The 
Peelites  were  the  difficulty.  Without  them  there  could  be  no  strong  Government. 
They  declined  to  join  Lord  Stanley  from  differences  as  to  commercial  policy,  and 
their  vigorous  disapproval  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill  prevented  them  from 
joining  Lord  John  Russell.  After  a  short  interregnum  Lord  John  and  his  colleagues 
returned  to  office. 

2  Cohden  is  here  at  the  very  heart  of  the  deplorable  tale  of  English  mismanage- 
ment of  Ireland  since  Catholic  Emancipation.  We  invited  the  L'ish  to  send  repre- 
sentatives of  their  wishes  and  views  to  Parliament,  but,  until  to  a  small  extent  in 
our  own  day,  their  views  and  wishes  counted  for  nothing  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
Of  course  the  spirit  of  the  Titles  Bill  was  in  miniature  the  same  as  the  spirit  of  the 
Penal  Code.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  nicely  calculated  to  deepen  Irish  dis- 
like for  English  supremacy,  and  Irish  contempt  for  English  professions  of  equality 
and  tolerance. 

24 


;370  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1851. 

take  a  part  or  not.  But  it  is  very  desirable  that  the  English  people 
should  be  known  by  the  Irish  to  have  taken  a  part  in  ridding 
them  of  this  insulting  measure," 

''March  13.  {To  Mr.  W.  R  Greg)—  ....  I  doubt  the 
policy  of  interfering  in  the  Caffre  business  until  we  have  more 
authentic  news ;  the  proper  cure  for  these  recurriug  wars  is  to  let 
the  colonists  bear  the  brunt  of  them.  This  must  be  done  by  first 
giving  them  the  powers  of  self-government,  and  then  throwing  on 
them  the  responsibility  of  their  own  policy.  They  would  then  be 
very  careful  to  treat  the  neighboring  savages  with  justice.  At 
present  it  is  the  interest  of  the  colonists  to  provoke  the  natives 
into  war,  because  it  leads  to  a  most  profitable  expenditure  of 
British  money." 

"  March  15.  {To  Mr.  E.  Potter)  —  ....  As  for  politics,  no- 
body can  foresee  for  a  week  what  will  happen.  Parties  were  a 
good  deal  confused  before,  thanks  to  Corn ;  but  now  the  Catholic 
element  has  made  confusion  worse  confounded.  Of  this  be  as- 
sured, all  the  embarrassments  in  the  House,  at  Court,  and  in  the 
Cabinet,  have  sprung  out  of  the  Papal  question.  It  may  suit  the 
Whigs  to  abuse  the  Eadicals,  or  make  the  Manchester  school  their 
whipping  boys ;  but  it  is  Lord  Johnny's  Durham  letter  and  his 
Bill  that  are  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  mischief.  For  the  last  fifteen 
years,  ever  since  1835,  the  Whigs,  when  in  powder,  have  depended 
for  their  political  existence  upon  the  votes  of  the  Irish  members. 
If  that  support  had  been  at  any  time  withdrawn  in  consequence 
of  a  Durham  letter,  they  must  have  gone  out  of  office.  And  they 
must  go  out  now.  The  only  thing  that  keeps  them  in,  is  the  im- 
possibility of  finding  anybody  to  take  their  places.  In  fact,  it  is 
difficult  to  see  who  is  to  govern.  Any  Government  that  perse- 
veres in  the  anti-Papal  policy  will  be  opposed  by  the  Irish  mem- 
bers on  every  subject,  and  if  an  Administration  were  to  come  in 
to  do  nothing  against  the  Pope,  they  would,  I  suppose,  be  turned 
out  by  the  English.     So  that  we  are  in  a  rather  considerable  fix. 

"  I  will  back  the  Irish  to  win^  though  they  have  long  odds  against 
them,  because  they  have  right  and  justice  on  their  side.  In  fact, 
we  are  exhibiting  ourselves  in  this  year  of  the  Exhibition  as  the 
most  intolerant  people  on  earth.  Europe  cries  shame  on  us,  and 
America  laughs  at  us.  Our  course  is  that  of  the  dog  in  the  manger. 
We  will  not  come  to  an  agreement  with  the  Pope,  as  the  Emperor 
of  Eussia  does,  by  which  he  has  a  voice  in  the  appointment  of  the 
Koman  Catholic  bishops  in  his  Polish  provinces  (his  Ireland),  nor 
will  we  allow  the  Irish  to  manage  .their  own  spiritual  affairs 
without  our  aid  or  intervention,  as  is  done  in  the  United  States. 
Was  ever  anything  so  absurdly  unjust  ?  Well  may  our  statesmen, 
such  as  Graham,  Aberdeen,  and  so  on,  decline  to  take  office  to 
carry  out  such  a  system.     I  will  venture  to  say  that  there  is  not  a 


iET.  47.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  371 

leading  statesman  in  any  country  of  Europe  or  America,  who  would 
for  a  moment  take  upon  himself  the  responsibility  of  treating 
seven  millions  of  Catholics  as  we  are  doing. 

"  As  respects  the  prospects  of  Free  Trade  they  are  safe  enough 
if  we  can  have  an  appeal  to  the  country  upon  that  question  '  pure 
and  simple.'  But  if  the  Protectionists  can  throw  in  the  religious 
cry,  Heaven  only  knows  what  may  be  the  consequence.  All  I  can 
say  is,  that,  if  .the  people  are  determined  to  indulge  their  bigotry 
even  at  the  cost  of  a  tax  on  their  bread,  it  is  their  affair  and  not 
mine.  I  shall  as  resolutely  oppose  Protestant  monopoly  as  Pro- 
tectionist monopoly. 

"  I  am  glad  to  hear  such  good  accounts  of  you.  I  would  not 
advise  you  to  come  to  Parliament,  although  I  should  like  to  have 
you  on  the  same  bench  with  me.  For  my  part  I  am  so  disgusted 
with  these  theological  squabbles  that  I  should  be  delighted  if  I 
could  bolt  out  of  the  political  ring.     But  there  is  no  such  luck." 

'' Dimford,  April  22.  {To  Mrs.  Cobden.)  —  !  left  Chichester 
with  Elcome  yesterday,  in  the  midst  of  rain,  and  it  has  been  rain- 
ing ever  since. '  I  can  hardly  see  the  trees  on  the  side  of  the  hill 
leading  up  to  Walker's,  and  the  Downs  are  quite  lost  in  the  thick 
mist.  I  am.  of  course  a  prisonjer,  which  is  very  disagreeable. 
Yesterday,  whilst  at  Chichester,  I  was  very  extravagant  in  the 
purchase  of  a  great  number  of  roses  in  pots,  which  I  expect  to 
arrive  to-day,  and  I  shall  have  them  taken  out  of  the  pots  and 
placed  in  the  garden.  They  are  all  of  the  autumn  perpetual  kinds. 
I  intend  to  have  a  bed  of  them  on  the  rising  ground  just  at  the  end 
of  the  house,  not  coming  forward  too  far  to  interfere  with  the  view 
of  the  Downs.  I  shall  also  have  a  bed  in  the  front  of  the  house. 
We  shall  shine  in  roses.  The  hollies  and  evergreens  are  still 
looking  rather  sorry  and  downcast.  But,  probably,  with  dry  warm 
w^eather  we  shall  soon  see  an  improvement.  The  temperature  is 
mild,  and  the  wheats  are  looking  vigorous.  The  nightingale  and 
cuckoo  are  already  heard  in  the  hanger,  and  the  foliage  of  the 
woods  is  assuming  a  lively  hue.  I  long  for  the  time  when  we 
can  be  here  with  the  children  in  the  autumn.  You  will  enjoy  it 
beyond  measure." 

"Mai/  21.  (To  Mr.  W.  R  Greg)  —What  the  Whig  Govern- 
ment intend  to  do  I  know  not.^  But  of  this  I  am  quite  sure, 
that  if  they  do  not  intend  to  bring  forward  a  measure  calculated 
to  excite  some  enthusiasm  in  the  country,  they  had  better  leave 
us  as  we  are,  to  fight  the  battle  upon  the  Free  Trade  question. 
In  my  opinion,  no  measure  will  rouse  the  middle  class,  or  have 
the  slightest  chance  of  meeting  any  response  from  the  county 
constituency,  unless  the  ballot  form  a  part  of  it ;  and  I  fear  that 

1  This  refers  to  the  Ministerial  proposals,  which  were  in  vanous  shapes  before 
the  public  from  this  time  until  the  Crimean  War,  for  parliamentary  refonn. 


372  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1851. 

Lord  John  will  flinch  from  that.  The  present  system  is  worn  out. 
There  must  be  a  new  departure  taken,  with  a  better  crew  on 
board  the  Government  vessel,  and  an  avowed  and  definite  desti- 
nation in  view.  Until  this  fresh  start  be  taken,  we  shall  be  in  a 
transition  state,  and  even  when  we  get  a  reformed  Parliament  and 
an  enlarged  constituency,  it  may  take  a  long  time  to  enable  the 
people  to  make  up  their  minds  what  they  shall  do  with  their  power. 
I  am  not  sanguine  (since  the  Papal  outburst)  of  living  to  see  the 
political  millennium  which  some  people  expect  from  another  Re- 
form Bill.  But  I  repeat,  the  present  system  is  come  to  a  dead- 
lock, and  whether  for  good  or  evil,  the  people  must  be  called  in 
to  give  a  preponderance  to  one  or  the  other  political  scale." 

This  year  the  first  Great  Exhibition  was  opened.  I  cannot 
find  that  Cobden  was  in  any  way  responsible  for  the  excessive 
importance  which  was  so  irrationally  attributed  to  this  once  fa- 
mous enterprise.  He  did  not  believe  that  it  marked  the  arrival 
of  a  pacific  transformation,  but  he  thought  that  he  might  take 
people  sufficiently  at  their  word  to  propose  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons that  the  Foreign  Minister  should  be  recommended  to  open 
negotiations  with  France  for  a  reduction  of  armaments.  He  stip- 
ulated for  nothing  specific  ;  he  only  urged  that  an  effort  in  this 
direction  should  be  made  at  a  time  which  seemed  in  every  respect 
so  incomparably  propitious.  Lord  Palmerston  hastened  with  vir- 
tuous alacrity  to  give  a  cordial  adhesion  to  the  general  tendency 
of  his  honorable  friend's  views,  but  would  prefer  to  be  left  with 
his  hands  free.  Other  members  followed,  showing  in  bright  colors 
wliat  a  noble  spectacle  we  should  set  to  mankind,  if  a  solemn  res- 
olution of  Parliament  should  commission  the  Foreign  Secretary 
to  say  openly  to  France,  "  We  desire  peace,  and  ask  you  to  aid  us 
in  that  great  work."  All  this  was  the  fasliionable  mood  of  the 
hour,  just  as  declamatory  panic  was  the  mood  of  the  hour  after. 
There  was  no  hypocrisy  in  either  case.  The  instability  arose, 
from  the  omission  of  influential  statesmen  to  keep  in  their 
minds  a  systematic  survey  of  the  facts  of  our  national  position 
in  relation  to  Foreicfn  Powers.  There  was  no  real  basis  con- 
sistently  present  to  the  legislature  or  the  public,  to  justify  their 
occasional  fits  of  pacific  profession.  Cobden  had  no  illusions  as 
to  the  real  progress  of  his  opinions,  but  the  fewer  his  illusions, 
tlie  more  strongly  he  felt  bound  to  persevere. 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  Cobden  would  be  able  to  speak 
so  freely  as  he  was  accustomed  to  do  on  military  and  naval  mat- 
ters, without  touching  that  susceptibility  which  is  common  to 
all  experts,  and  to  experts  in  these  two  great  services  more  even 
than  in  others.  He  often  received  insolent  letters  from  officers 
who  resented  public  discussions  as  private  affronts.  In  1850  a 
certain  captain,  whose  operations  in  Borneo  Cobden  had  spoken 


Mt.  47.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  ,373 

of  as  being  of  the  nature  of  piracy,  sent  him  a  challenge  to  fight  a 
duel.  Cobden  replied  that  if  the  writer  repeated  the  offence,  he 
would  hand  him  over  to  the  police.  Vivacious  journalists  in- 
stantly taxed  him  with  inconsistency.  If  he  was  for  non-resist- 
ance, universal  disarmament,  and  peace-at-any-price,  with  what 
decency  could  he  talk  of  an  appeal  to  the  police  ?  This  folly  was 
an  excellent  specimen  of  the  criticism  which  Cobden  was  accus- 
tomed to  receive  at  the  hands  of  more  responsible  personages  than 
the  humorists  of  the  press.  In  the  same  year  an  Admiral  in  high 
position  entered  into  a  hostile  correspondence  with  him  on  the 
ground  of  something  which  Mr.  Bright  w^as  wrongly  reported  to 
have  said.  Cobden  replied  that  his  correspondent  must  expect 
like  all  public  men  to  have  his  conduct  freely  canvassed,  and  that 
if  he  had  so  little  control  over  his  temper  that  he  must  needs 
challenge  one  member  of  the  legislature  to  mortal  combat  because 
another  member  was  reported  to  have  made  a  mistake  of  a  single 
word  in  a  speech  of  an  hour's  length,  or  because  a  reporter's  pen 
may  have  slipped  at  a  critical  moment,  then  the  Admiral  had 
mistaken  his  vocation,  and  ought  to  retire  from  the  public  service. 
Cobden's  reply  was  too  direct  to  be  courteous,  but  the  provocation 
was  sharp. 

We  may  now  proceed  to  correspondence  of  a  graver  kind,  prin- 
cipally with  Mr.  Bright :  — 

"  Sept.  29.  (To  Mr.  Bright.)  —  I  have  been  looking  out  for  signs 
and  omens  of  the  political  future,  but  cannot  say  I  see  any  indi- 
cations of  a  breeze  in  the  direction  of  Eeform.  People  are  too 
well-to-do  in  the  world  to  agitate  for  anything.  Did  you  ever 
know  or  read  of  any  movement  for  organic  change  when  wheat 
was  under  40s.,  to  say  nothing  of  cotton  at  4d.  ?  I  am  willing  to 
do  my  share  in  the  House  or  out,  of  it,  as  an  individual ;  but  when 
you  suggest  a  Conference  under  the  auspices  of  Wilson  and  our- 
selves in  Manchester,  it  is  well  to  consider  whether  we  may  not 
be  under  the  risk  of  deceiving  ourselves  or  misleading  others  as 
to  the  meaning  of  such  a  step. 

"  If  we  move  together  at  the  head  of  an  organization,  it  wdll  be 
assumed  that  w^e  are  going  to  bring  the  League  following  with  us. 
This  will  be  a  delusion  practised  upon  people  at  a  distance,  and 
probably  upon  ourselves ;  for  depend  on  it,  we  shall  not  carry 
with  us  those  who  co-operated  with  us  in  that  struggle.  Since  I 
have  been  down  here  [Midhurst],  I  have  been  amusing  myself 
under  an  old  yew-tree  by  looking  over  several  bushels  of  old  let- 
ters which  I  received  during  the  League  agitation.  The  names 
of  all  those  who  did  the  work  of  that  seven  years'  struggle  are 
fresh  in  my  memory.  Do  not  deceive  yourself ;  the  smue  men  will 
not  fight  the  battle  of  Parliamentary  Beform.  If  we  go  into  the 
conflict,  we  must  seek  for  recruits  from  amongst  another  class. 


374  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1851. 

Let  this  be  understood  beforehand  by  ourselves  and  the  public ; 
otherwise  we  do  harm  to  all  parties,  by  misleading  the  country 
and  ourselves. 

"  But  is  it  not  a  proof  that  the  country  is  not  ripe  for  a  really 

V"  great  measure  of  Eeform,  that  there  is  no  spontaneous  movement 
for  it  ?  In  all  great  movements,  new  men  spring  up.  They  are 
the  vouchers  for  the  reality  of  the  public  interest  in  the  Eeform 
in  question.  When  the  Catholics  were  ready  to  free  themselves, 
it  was  so.  When  the  days  of  the  Corn  Law  %vere  numbered,  it 
was  so.  But  where  are  the  men  who  now  ask  you  and  me  and 
Wilson  to  put  ourselves  at  their  head,  to  effect  another  Eeform  of 
Parliament  ?  .  .  .  .  Where  are  the  intiuential  local  men  who  are 
guaranties  for  the  earnestness  of  any  considerable  body  of  reliable 
partisans  throughout  the  kingdom  ?  We  are  bound  to  look  about 
us  for  some  security  of  the  kind.  Nay,  as  practical  men  of  this 
world,  we  should  be  guilty  of  a  wanton  waste  of  the  little  moral 
influence  we  possess,  if  we  did  not  take  a  calm  survey  of  the 
prospects  of  support  before  plunging  into  a  fresh  agitation.  Lo- 
pez may  be  pitied,  or  blamed,  according  as  people  believe  him  to 
have  had  the  opportunity  of  knowing  beforehand  the  opinion  of 
the  Cuban  population ;  but  nobody  will  ever  excuse  you  or  me 
for  miscalculating  the  force  of  public  opinion  upon  any  ques- 

^        tion. 

"  We  can  learn  what  the  people  want,  if  we  take  the  trouble 
and  the  time  to  inquire.     I  confess  that,  before  1  embark  in  any 

^  formal  proceeding,  I  should  like  to  have  better  evidence  than  I 
have  hitherto  had  of  the  determination  of  the  public  to  carry  a 
thorough  measure  of  Eeform.  To  judge  by  appearances,  nobody 
cares  about  it.  There  may  be  a  change.  When  the  breeze  stirs, 
I  think  I  shall  perceive  the  ripple  on  the  water  as  soon  as  any- 
body. 

"  I  am  not,  as  you  suppose,  desponding  about  political  progress. 

y  I  have  faith  in  the  onward  tendency  of  our  species.  Not  even 
the  red  cloaks  of  the  Manchester  aldermen  can  bring  me  to  my 
cynical  brother's  doctrine,  that  we  move  in  a  circle  of  instincts, 
and  return  after  a  given  cycle  to  the  old  starting-place  (I  admit, 
however,  that  the  cloaks  are  a  great  triumph  for  his  theory).  If 
we  are  not  now  moving  onward  with  great  velocity,  it  is  because 
we  made  a  great  rush  for  the  goal  of  Free  Trade,  and  the  country 
has  hardly  yet  recovered  its  breath  sufficiently  for  a  fresh  start. 
But  there  is  no  danger  of  our  standing  still  or  becoming  stagnant. 
The  repeal  of  the  Corn  Law  was  a  severe  dose  of  alterative  medi- 
cine, which  is  working  by  a  self-acting  process  a  gradual  change 
in  the  body  politic.  It  may  take  time,  but  the  effects  are  sure. 
I  am  living  in  a  part  of  the  country  where  I  can  witness  its 
operations." 


y 


iET.47.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  375 

"  MidhuTSt,  Oct.  1.  {To  Mr.  Bright)  —  Your  letter  of  the  25th 
has  only  to-day  come  to  hand,  without  any  explanation  of  the 
cause  of  the  delay. 

"  I  observe  that  you  are  hopeful  of  aid  from  Baines  and  Co. 
Have  you  seen  the  Mercury  of  Saturday  ?  It  is  lukewarm,  or  less 
tepid  even  than  that !  Gives  the  go- bye  to  the  ballot,  opposes 
our  honest  redistribution  because  it  would  give  an  eleventh  of  the 
representation  to  London,  and  objects  to  household  suffrage  with 
the  old  and  perverse  plea  that  it  would  give  a  preponderance  to 
the  agricultural  districts. 

"  By  the  way,  with  reference  to  what  you  heard  from  

about  the  register.  I  may  here  say  that  my  mind  is  made  up  not 
to  stand  again  for  the  West  Riding.  I  shall  take  an  early  oppor- 
tunity of  announcing  my  intention.  Apart  from  the  Free  Trade 
question,  I  don't  see  wliat  principle  I  could  represent  in  the  West 
Riding.  If  Baines  be  a  representative  of  the  opinions  of  the 
iufiaential  Liberals  of  the  Riding,  we  are  as  wide  as  the  poles 
asunder  upon  the  vital  questions  of  the  day.  I  will  sit  for  no 
place  where  the  constituency  will  not  back  me  in  an  active  oppo- 
sition to  all  invasions  of  the  principle  of  religious  equality.  That 
question  stands  in  my  judgment  before  that  of  commercial  freedom. 
And  seeing  how  the  majority  of  dissenting  politicians  have  vio- 
lated the  rights  of  conscience  by  supporting  the  Ecclesiastical 
Titles  Bill,  I  feel  by  no  means  certain  that  I  shall  find  any  con- 
stituency which  will  return  me  on  my  own  terms,  about  which, 
however,  I  feel  no  nervous  anxiety.  I  see  nothing  but  party  v 
animosity  and  political  tergiversation  in  prospect  in  the  House 
for  some  years  to  come. 

"  I  agree  with  you  to  the  letter  in  all  you  say  about  Ireland. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  land  question  (coupled  with  the  Church 
Establishment)  is  at  the  root  of  the  evil.  And  here  let  me  say 
that  I  go  heartily  with  you  in  the  determination  to  attack  the 
land  monopoly  root  and  branch  both  here  and  in  Ireland  and 
Scotland.  There  is  an  article  in  this  day's  Freeholder  ('  Large  and 
Small  Farms ')  which  will  show  you  that  our  minds  are  running 
in  the  same  direction.  Wherever  the  deductions  of  political 
economy  lead,  I  am  prepared  to  follow.  By  the  way,  have  you 
had  time  to  read  Bastiat's  partly  posthumous  volume,  *  Les  Har- 
monies Economiques '  ?  If  not,  do  so  ;  it  will  require  a  studious 
perusal,  but  will  repay  it.  He  has  breathed  a  soul  into  the  dry 
bones  of  political  economy,  and  has  vindicated  his  favorite  science 
from  the  charge  of  inhumanity  with  all  the  fervor  of  a  religious 
devotee. 

"  But  to  return  to  the  Land  customs  of  this  country.  We  have 
made  no  progress  upon  the  subject  of  primogeniture  during  the 
last  twenty  years.     Public  opinion  is  either  indifferent  or  favor- 


x/' 


376  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1851. 

able  to  the  system  of  large  properties  kept  together  by  entail.  If 
you  want  a  proof,  see  how  every  successful  trader  buys  an  estate, 
and  tries  to  perpetuate  his  name  in  connection  with  '  that  ilk '  by 
creating  an  eldest  son.  It  is  probably  the  only  question  on  which, 
if  an  attempt  were  made  to  abolish  the  present  system,  France 
could  be  again  roused  to  revolution ;  and  yet  we  are  in  England 
actually  hugging  our  feudal  fetters  !  But  we  are  a  Chinese  people. 
What  a  kicky  thing  it  is  that  our  grandmothers  did  not  deform 
their  feet  d  la  Chinoise !  if  so,  we  should  have  had  a  terrible 
battle  to  emancipate  women's  toes.  But,  however  unprepared  the 
public  may  be  for  our  views  on  the  land  question,  I  am  ready  to 
incur  any  obloquy  in  the  cause  of  economical  truth.  And  it  is, 
I  confess,  on  this  class  of  questions,  rather  than  on  plans  of 
organic  reform,  that  I  feel  disposed  to  act  the  part  of  a  pioneer. 

"  The  extension  of  the  suffrage  must  and  will  come,  but  it  chills 
my  enthusiasm  upon  the  subject  when  I  see  so  much  popular 
error  and  prejudice  prevailing  upon  such  questions  as  the  Colonies, 
religious  freedom,  and  the  land  customs  of  this  country.  I  do 
not  mean  to  say  that  these  thoughts  make  me  for  an  instant  falter 
in  my  advocacy  of  the  extension  of  the  franchise,  but  they  make 
me  doubt  whether  I  may  not  be  better  employed  in  trying  to 
diffuse  sound  practical  views,  than  in  fighting  for  forms  or  theories 
of  government  which  do  not  necessarily  involve  the  fate  of 
practical  legislation  at  all.  The  greatest  obstacle  to  any  improve- 
ment or  change  in  John  Bull's  sentiments  just  now  is  the  egregious 
vanity  of  the  beast.  He  has  been  so  plastered  with  flattery,  for 
which  he  seems  to  have  an  insatiable  appetite,  that  he  has  become 
an  impervious  mass  of  self-esteem.  Nothing  is  so  difficult  as  to 
alter  the  policy  of  individuals  or  nations  who  allow  themselves 
to  be  persuaded  that  the}^  are  the  '  envy  of  surrounding  nations 
and  the  admiration  of  the  world.'  Time  and  adversity  can  alone 
operate  in  such  cases." 

"  October  29.  {To  Mr.  Bright)  —  I  thought  I  had  so  repeatedly 
explained  myself  upon  the  Reform  movement,  that  it  must  pre- 
vent any  misunderstanding  between  us  as  to  my  meaning.  I  do 
not  advocate  our  doing  nothing.  I  am  prepared  to  do  something. 
We  must  all  do  our  best.  But  the  question,  and  the  only  ques- 
tion which  I  was  discussing,  is  whether  we  shall  call  a  Conference 
in  Manchester.  That  means  in  the  eyes  of  the  public  that  the 
men  who  call  the  Conference,  and  who  put  themselves  at  its 
head,  are  prepared  to  organize  an  agitation.  Have  we  duly 
reckoned  the  chances  of  making  Manchester  the  headquarters  of 
a  successful  Eeform  movement  ?  I  doubt  its  success.  A  Confer- 
ence would  be  only  justifiable,  in  my  opinion,  after  we  had  been 
requested  to  call  one  by  the  reformers  of  the  several  localities  from 
which  we  should  invite  delegates.     I  have  seen  no  symptoms  of 


iET.  47.]  KOSSUTH.  377 

any  such  movement  anywhere.  I  wish  you  to  draw  the  distinction 
in  your  mind  between  our  individual  efforts  in  support  of  some 
such  broad  plan  as  Hume's,  which  I  am  prepared  to  make,  and  our 
calling  a  Conference  in  Manchester.  Supposing  the  latter  to  be 
decided  on,  what  will  you  do  with  Walmsley's  great-little  go  ?  Will 
you  join  it  and  merge  in  it,  or  will  you  set  up  a  distinct  organiza- 
tion ?  If  the  former,  you  will  avoid  all  responsibility  ;  but  you  will 
perhaps  give  an  apparent  force  to  a  society  which  has  little  real 
strength,  and  thus  tend  to  foster  tlie  delusion  that  more  is  doinfj 
than  is  really  being  done  by  it.  If  the  latter,  you  incur  a  great 
responsibility ;  you  can  only  be  justified  in  superseding  his  society, 
by  the  certainty  of  establishing  something  better.  In  any  case, 
we  shall  for  a  time  have  two  suns  in  the  firmament  trying  to 
outshine  each  other.  Unless  we  make  a  very  grand  flare-up 
indeed,  we  shall  be  charged  with  impotent  jealousy  in  trying  to 
injure  Walmsley's  concern,  without  being  able  to  set  up  anything 
better.  Now,  none  of  these  difficulties  arise  if  we  act  individually, 
instead  of  calling  a  Manchester  Conference. 

"  I  have  thus  again  explained  my  views.  We  may  differ,  but 
cannot  misunderstand  each  other.  Having  had  my  say,  I  by  no 
means  wish  it  to  be  supposed  that  I  would  refuse  to  join  you  and 
Wilson  in  any  such  demonstration,  if  you  decide  to  hold  one.  I 
shall  be  in  the  north  before  the  middle  of  next  month,  and  will 
come  and  pass  a  night  at  your  house.  I  am,  however,  under  an 
engagement  to  be  present  at  a  Freehold  Land  Society's  Conference 
in  London,  on  the  25tli  of  November  (Monday). 

"  I  don't  know  how  soon  I  may  be  with  you.  The  Leeds  people 
have  invited  Kossuth  to  attend  a  meeting.^  I  don't  know  whether 
he  will  go.  I  have  advised  him  from  the  first  to  be  very  chary  in 
accepting  invitations ;  but,  if  he  should  go  there,  I  shall  certainly 
be  present.  By  the  way,  you  will  be  curious  to  hear  what  sort  of 
impression  he  made  on  me.  Amiability,  earnestness,  and  dis- 
interestedness were  the  most  speaking  characteristics  of  the  man. 
Speaking  phrenologically,  I  should  say  he  wants  firmness ;  and  the 
head  is  very  small  in  the  animal  organs  behind  the  ear.  Alto- 
gether he  did  not  impress  me  with  a  sense  of  his  power  to  the 
extent  which  I  had  looked  for.  And  yet  he  must  possess  it,  for 
otherwise  he  could  not  have  acquired  an  ascendency  over  the 
aristocratic  party  in  his  country,  where,  judging  by  the  specimens 
I  have  seen  amongst  the  refugees,  he  was  brouglit  into  competition 
with  men  of  no  ordinary  stamp.  The  secret  of  his  influence  lies, 
I  suspect,  in  his  eloquence.  His  speech  at  Winchester,  delivered 
within  forty-eight  hours  of  his  arrival  in  England,  in  a  language 
with  which  he  could  have  had  but  little  practical  acquaintance, 

*  Kossuth  landed  at  Southampton,  from  Turkey,  on  October  23. 


378  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1851. 

was  the  most  extraordinary  exploit  I  ever  witnessed.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  with  forty-eight  hours'  preparation,  and  a  supply  of 
the  necessary  materials,  he  would  make  as  good  a  financial  state- 
ment in  the  House  as  any  public  man  amongst  us.  The  speech 
he  delivered  was  suggested  by  myself,  and  was  spoken  without 
preparation. 

"  I  have  not  seen  a  report  of  the  proceedings  at  the  Southamp- 
ton banquet,  but  am  anxious  to  see  how  Lawrence,  the  American 
Minister,  will  get  through  his  part  of  sympathizing  with  the  Aus- 
trian rebel,  who  deposed  the  house  of  Hapsburg  in  Hungary,  and 
was  a  few  weeks  ago  hung  in  effigy  by  command  of  the  Austrian 
Government.  How  will  these  diplomatists,  with  their  starched 
etiquette,  ever  survive  such  a  violation  of  their  conventional  rules  ? 
Then  how  can  the  Austrian  Minister  remain  at  Washington  after 
the  President  has  invited  Kossuth  to  be  his  guest,  and  given  orders 
for  his  reception  with  military  honors  ?  Assuredly,  these  Demo- 
crats are  destined  to  turn  the  diplomatic  world  upside  down. 

"  You  are  quite  right  in  saying  that  Palmerston  wants  to  make 

/         political  capital  out   of  Kossuth.     His  tools  have  succeeded  in 

W       getting  a  vote  of  thanks  for  him  in  Southampton,  where  the  good 

folks  have  been  in  far  too  great  a  bustle  to  tliink  of  what  they  are 

doing.     But  you  will  have  observed  that  Kossuth  himself  avoids 

saying  anything  in  praise  of  Palmerston." 

"  Nov.  4  {To  F.  W.  Cobden)  —  It  seems  Kossuth  will  not  go 
to  Yorkshire,  and  I  do  not  see  the  necessity  of  my  attending  the 
Manchester  banquet.  The  Times  has  had  a  slap  in  the  face  which 
it  will  not  soon  forget  or  forgive.  It  has  been  fairly  cowed  by  the 
universal  execration  it  has  brought  upon  itself  Yet  what  an  ab- 
surd position  we  are  in.  So  completely  dictated  to  and  domineered 
over  by  one  newspaper,  that  it  requires  a  periodical  revolt  of  the 
whole  people  to  keep  the  despot  in  tolerable  order !  If  we  had,  as 
we  might  have,  a  dozen  daily  morning  papers,  of  all  prices,  repre- 
senting all  opinions,  and  holding  each  other  in  check,  there  would 
be  no  necessity  for  these  public  meetings  to  protest  against  the 
misrepresentation  of  the  press ;  which,  so  far  as  I  take  a  part  in 
them,  are  not  the  most  safe  or  convenient,  for  one  is  always  in 
danger  of  being  identified  with  those  who  give  vent  in  the  excite- 
ment of  the  moment  to  very  unsound  and  bellicose  sentiments." 

"  Novemher  7.  {To  Mr.  Bright)  —  As  respects  Sturge's  plan  of 
universal  suffrage,  although  I  am  convinced  we  shall  come  to  it 
some  day,  I  do  not  think  it  would  have  so  much  support  from  the 
electoral  body  as  household  suffrage.  And  we  are  too  apt  to  for- 
get that  the  mass  of  the  people,  however  enthusiastic  in  favor  of 
universal  suffrage,  have  not  the  power  of  carrying  that  or  any 
other  measure,  excepting  with  the  aid  of  the  middle  class. 

"Again,  Sturge  loses  sight  of  the  inequality  of  representation, 


^T.47.]  KOSSUTH.  379 

whicli  (even  if  we  would  risk  the  ballot)  renders  it  quite  impossi- 
ble that  we  should  make  the  Eeform  Bill  a  simple  question  of 
household  or  manhood  suffrage.  After  all  (you  will  say  I  am 
upon  my  hobby  again)  I  look  to  the  forty-shilling  freehold  move- 
ment as  the  surest  guaranty  of  our  being  able  to  break  down  the 
power  of  the  aristocracy  without  an  appeal  to  violence.  A  county 
or  two  quietly  rescued  from  the  landlords  by  this  process  will, 
when  announced,  do  more  to  strike  dismay  into  the  camp  of  feu- 
dalism and  inspire  the  people  with  the  assurance  of  victory,  than 
anything  we  could  do.  As  respects  the  Whig  progTamme,  if  the 
ballot  be  left  out,  I  will  not  be  a  party  to  the  scheme,  and  I  feel 
quite  sure  that  it  will  be  left  out." 

"  Midlmrst,  Nov.  6.  (  „  )  —  I  guarded  myself  as  carefully  as 
ever  I  did  in  my  life  from  being  seduced  into  an  unsound  position 
at  Winchester,  and  it  is  only  a  proof  of  the  terrible  powers  of  per- 
version possessed  by  the  Times  that  yoit  have  been  influenced  by 
its  comments  on  my  speech.  The  word  '  Stop '  as  applied  to  Eus- 
sia  was  used  first  by  Kossuth  in  his  speech.  He  said  he  wished  ^ 
us  only  to  say.  Stop.  In  my  remarks  I  alluded  to  the  unsound 
state  of  public  opinion  here,  and  our  own  violations  of  the  princi- 
ple of  non-intervention  in  our  foreign  policy.  I  also  referred  to  ' 
the  fact  that  when  the  Eussians  invaded  Hungary,  so  much  were 
we  under  the  influence  of  those  unsound  opinions,  that  the  tone 
of  some  of  our  leading  papers  was  adverse  to  the  Hungarian  cause. 
I  said,  then  let  public  opinion  in  England  be  set  right  by  such 
speeches  as  we  had  just  heard,  and  let  us  come  into  court  with 
clean  hands,  by  acting  upon  the  principle  of  non-intervention  our- 
selves, and  let  America  join  us  in  the  same  course  (though  she  has 
rather  given  symptoms  of  following  our  bad  example),  and  then 
the  word  '  Stop '  addressed  to  Eussia  would  have  the  force  of  a 
thousand  cannons. 

"  I  had,  of  course,  a  good  deal  of  private  talk  with  him,  all  in 
the  same  strain,  and  distinctly  told  him  that  I  had  no  other  hope 
for  him  but  in  the  general  adoption  of  the  principle  of  non-inter- 
vention as  a  public  opinion  of  the  civilized  world.  And  certainly 
he  has  done  his  part  nobly  in  putting  forward  that  principle  in  its 
fairest  aspect.  He  tells  us  he  does  not  want  help,  but  he  wishes 
us  to  secure  him  fair  play.  We  say  we  wish  fair  play  to  him  and 
all  others  struggling  for  what  they  hold  to  be  their  rights.  Is  not 
such  a  man,  then,  to  have  our  sympathies  ?  Are  we  to  let  him  be 
slaughtered  here  by  the  Times,  and  stand  silently  by  whilst  worse 
than  Turks  are  assassinating  him  morally  ?  No ;  you  are  not  the 
man  to  say  so.  But  then  you  are  afraid  that  others  will  push  our 
doctrines  to  the  point  of  physical  force.  Even  if  they  do,  that  is 
no  reason  why  we  should  cease  to  give  moral  power  its  only 
chance,  by  boldly  proclaiming  the  right  and  justice  of  the  Hunga- 


380  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1851. 

rians  to  settle  their  own  domestic  affairs.  Now  I  am  satisfied 
that  if  public  opinion  in  England  can  be  shown  to  be  unmistakably 
against  Eussian  invasion  of  Hungary,  the  Russian  Government 
would  no  more  think  of  risking  a  collision  with  the  two  most 
powerful  maritime  states,  than  Tuscany  or  Sardinia  would ;  for 
she  is,  if  possible,  more  at  the  mercy  of  those  powers.  Therefore, 
to  avoid  the  possibility  of  war,  let  us  give  the  fullest  development 
^  and  expression  to  sound  public  opinion. 

,  "  My  own  opinion  is  that  we  are  on  the  eve  of  a  revolution  in 
>\^^the  diplomatic  world ;  that  the  old  regime  of  mystification  and 
innuendo  and  intrigue  cannot  survive  the  growth  of  the  demo- 
cratic principle  ;  that  diplomacy  must  be  a  public  and  responsible 
organization  ;  and  nobly  again  has  Kossuth  assailed  this  strong- 
hold of  the  hierarchical  spirit.  What  could  be  better  than  when  he 
said,  '  Diplomacy  tells  us  that  the  dinner  is  prepared  and  eaten, 
and  we  (the  people)  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  digest  the  conse- 
quences '  ?  Then,  again,  his  attacks  upon  the  loaning  system  are 
quite  in  our  spirit.  In  fact  he  conies  here  preaching  the  main 
principles  enunciated  at  our  Peace  Congress,  but  preaching  them 
better  even  in  a  foreign  tongue  than  I  could  do  in  my  own  lan- 
guage ;  and  surely  such  a  man  ought  not  to  be  slighted,  although 
some  of  his  admirers  talk  a  little  gunpowder. 

"  But  the  fact  is  that  upon  the  whole  the  public  addresses  and 
speeches  are  singularly  judicious,  with  the  exception  of  the  London 
Working  Men's  address,  with  which,  of  course,  the  working  men 
had  nothing  to  do,  I  join  you  heartily  in  wishing  to  guard  us 
against  being  for  a  moment  thought  to  be  the  advocates  of  war  or 
armed  intervention,  and  am  equally  convinced  with  yourself  that 
we  have  nothing  to  hope  from  Palmerston  and  Co.  One  of  my 
reasons  for  hoping  much  from  Kossuth's  agitation  here  and  in 
America  is  that  it  will  tend  to  unveil  Foreign  Ministers  and  put 
Foreign  Oftices  in  order. 

"  By  the  way.  With  reference  to  your  difficulties  about  speaking, 
I  should  expect  that  Kossuth  will  prefer  that  nobody  speaks  but 
himself.  After  having  such  a  rule  adopted  by  the  London  Work- 
ing Men's  Committee,  it  would  be  invidious  to  depart  from  it  in 
Manchester.  I  know  it  is  his  wish  that  nobody  speaks  in  his 
presence  unless  he  is  the  guest  of  the  chairman,  as  at  Southampton. 
So,  if  you  like  to  suggest  to  the  committee  that  Kossuth  should 
receive  addresses  and  make  a  reply,  and  that  nobody  else  should 
speak,  I  know  that,  would  be  most  agreeable  to  him." 

"  Dunford,  Nov.  13.  (  „  )  —  I  have  only  time  for  a  few  words 
to  save  the  post  after  reading  your  speech,  to  say  how  greatly  I 
admire  your  sentiments  and  approve  the  line  x)f  argument  you 
took  at  the  great  Kossuth  meeting.  I  can  fully  appreciate  the 
difidculties  of  a  peace  man  standing  before  such  a  meeting,  full  of 


^T.47.]  KOSSUTH.  381 

the  most  generous  indignation  at  the  oppressors  of  a  people  so 
nobly  represented  by  the  great  Magyar.  If  you  could  have  moved 
there  and  then  a  declaration  of  war  against  Kussia  and  Austria,  it 
would  have  perhaps  been  the  resolution  which  would  have  most 
perfectly  embodied  the  feelings  of  three  fourths  of  those  present. 
But  your  remarks  will  bear  the  test  of  time  and  reflection,  which 
I  should  think  would  hardly  be  the  case  with  the  rev.  gentlemen 
who  fell  foul  of  your  peace  principles.  By  the  way,,  if  I  rightly 
understand  what  Dr.  Vaughan  said,  he  took  credit  for  Palmerston 
for  having  prevented  the  Sultan  from  surrendering  Kossuth  by 
promising  him  material  help.  Now,  you  will  find  on  referring  to 
Palmerston's  speech  on  Roebuck's  Greek  Debate,  that,  in  speaking 
of  the  entry  of  our  fleet  into  the  Dardanelles,  he  himself  informed 
us  that  the  Emperor  of  Russia  withdrew  his  demand  for  the  ex- 
tradition of  the  Refugees  on  the  arrival* of  the  Sultan's  envoy 
remonstrating  against  the  demand,  and  hefore  any  intelligence  had 
reached  Peter shurgh  of  the  vieivs  of  the  English  Government.  But  I 
remember  at  the  time  making  the  calculation,  and  finding  that 
the  newspapers  of  London  and  Paris,  giving  one  unanimous  ex- 
pression from  all  parties  and  every  shade  of  opinion,  of  indignation 
at  the  attempt  of  the  northern  powers  to  violate  the  law  of  nations 
in  the  persons  of  Kossuth  and  his  companions,  reached  Peters- 
burgh  at  the  same  time  with  the  Turkish  envoy,  and  I  felt  con- 
vinced, and  I  said  as  much  in  the  House  afterwards,  that  it  was 
that  expression  of  opinion  from  Western  Europe  scared,  the  despots 
instantly  from  their  prey.  And  you  are  quite  right;  it  is  opinion 
and  opinion  only  that  is  wanting  to  establish  the  principle  of  non- 
intervention as  a  law  of  nations,  as  absolutely  as  the  political 
refugee  in  a  third  and  neutral  country  is  protected  now  by  the  law 
of  nations.  But  these  people  who  bawl  for  soldiers  and  sailors  to 
settle  these  matters,  forget  that  we  have  a  great  deal  to  do  to  settle 
opinion  amongst  ourselves  before  we  go  to  war  to  make  others 
conform  to  a  principle  which  we  have  not  yet  agreed  upon.  Was 
public  opinion  in  England  unanimously  expressed  against  Russian 
intervention  in  1849  ?  Turn  back  to  the  -columns  of  the  Times 
and  Manchester  Guardian  for  an  answer 

"  I  know  that  Kossuth  was  most  indignant  on  reading  the  blue- 
books  (at  Kutayah)  giving  the  correspondence  about  the  Hunga- 
rian struggle,  for  Pulsky  told  me  at  the  time  that  K.  had 
discovered  to  his  surprise  that  the  whole  moral  force  of  our  diplo- 
macy at  Vienna  was  employed  against  him,  and  that  Palmerston 
at  the  close  of  the  struggle  wrote  to  congratulate  the  Austrian 
government  upon  the  termination  of  the  war " 

"iVbv.  16.  {To  Mr.  Ashworth.) — Kossuth  is  most  certainly  a 
phenomenon ;  not  only  is  he  the  first  orator  of  the  age,  but  he 
combines  the  rare  attributes  of  a  first-rate  administrator,  high 


382  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1851.' 

moral  qualities,  and  unswerving  courage.  This  is  more  than  can 
be  said  of  Demosthenes  or  Cicero.  I  am  glad  to  see  by  your  let- 
ter that  you  have  participated  in  the  pleasure  of  listening  to  him. 
I  confess  I  felt  intensely  interested  in  the  success  of  his  visit,  after 
the  base  and  brutal  attempt  of  the  Times  to  destroy  his  character, 
before  even  he  had  alighted  on  our  shores.  The  generous  welcome 
given  to  him  is  I  believe  not  altogether  undue  to  the  dastardly 
attacks  made  on  him  by  that  paper,  M^hich  has  received  a  lesson 
not  easily  to  be  forgotten  or  forgiven.  The  tone  of  the  addresses 
and  speeches  delivered  at  the  meetings  has  been  very  discreet  and 
moderate.  There  has  been  some  gunpowder  vomited  forth,  par- 
ticularly by  a  reverend  gentleman  in  Manchester,  wdiich  might 
/have  been  better  spared  for  a  fitter  occasion.     What  we  w^ant  is  a 

\/  sounder  public  opinion  upon  the  question  of  national  rights  and 
the  sovereignty  of  peoples.  If  we  could  make  up  our  own  minds, 
as  a  community,  that  the  Russian  intervention  in  Hungary  was 
a  violation  of  the  independence  of  a  nation,  we  should  not  require 
to  threaten  war  to  make  our  opinion  influential.  But  what  were 
the  facts,  and  what  are  now  the  facts  ?  At  the  time  when  the 
Czar  moved  his  army  across  the  Carpathians,  not  only  were  we 
not  agreed  as  a  people  in  condemning  the  act,  but  the  Times, 
Guardian,  and  all  the  Tory  papers,  took  a  view  of  the  intervention 
favorable  to  Russia.  Even  Lord  Palmerston,  in  the  House,  spoke 
apologetically  of  it.  And  even  now  the  Times  leans  to  the  same 
side.  The  whole  of  the  Tory  party  and  the  aristocracy  are  hold- 
ing aloof  from  the  Kossuth  demonstration.  It  is  clear  that  we 
w^ant  an  enlightened  and  reformed  opinion  upon  the  subject  of 
V  non-intervention.  Kossuth  has  done  much  to  change  the  tone, 
and  I  think,  if  1849  had  now  to  be  gone  through  again,  there  would 
be  such  a  demonstration  of  opinion  as  would  scare  Nicholas  from 
his  prey.  But  there  is  still  very  much  to  be  done,  and  I  can 
imagine  nothing  more  calculated  to  retard  the  progress  of  sound 

^  public  opinion  than  to  invite  the  people  to  embark  in  a  fresh  war 
in  favor  of  Hungarian  liberty."  • 


v/ 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

THE   PROTECTIONISTS   IN   OFFICE. 

The  signal  victory  which  Lord  Palmerston  had  gained  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1850,  was  followed  before  the  close  of  the  following  year 
by  what  looked  to  everybody  but  himself  like  a  crushing  repulse. 
His  rapid  and  peremptory  way  of  doing  the  business  of  his  office 


JET.  47.]  THE   PROTECTIONISTS   IN   OFFICE.  383 

had  never  been  agreeable  to  the  Court.  The  substantial  aims  of 
his  policy  had  been  in  most  instances  extremely  disagreeable  to 
some  of  the  continental  personages  with  whom  the  English  Court 
was  on  terms  more  or  less  close.  In  these  high  quarters,  there- 
fore, he  was  no  favorite.  At  the  very  moment  of  his  triumph, 
the  Queen  transmitted  to  him  a  rebuke  for  neglect  of  considera- 
tion and  observance  towards  the  Crown,  so  sharply  worded  that 
when  it  became  public,  men  looked  upon  it  as  an  affront  not  to 
be  borne,  and  wondered  that  a  Minister  of  Lord  Palmerston's 
spirit  should  not  have  met  it  by  instant  resignation.  He  did  not 
take  this  course,  because,  in  his  own  words,  to  have  resigned  then 
would  have  been  to  give  the  fruits  of  victory  to  adversaries  whom 
he  had  defeated,  and  to  abandon  his  supporters  at  the  very  mo- 
ment when  by  their  means  he  had  just  triumphed.  It  was  not 
long,  however,  before  he  rashly  gave  his  enemies  their  opportu- 
nity. When  the  President  of  the  French  Eepublic  struck  his 
blow  against  the  Assembly,  Lord  Palmerston  thought  that  he  had 
done  wdiat  was  right  and  expedient,  and  frankly  said  as  much  in 
talking  to  the  French  Ambassador  in  London.  Eeference  was 
made  to  the  conversation  in  an  official  despatch  from  Paris.  The 
despatch  came  in  due  course  before  the  Queen  and  the  Prime 
Minister.  It  was  conceived  that  Lord  Palmerston's  expression  of 
opinion  on  the  President's  action,  before  consultation  with  his 
colleagues,  was  a  violation  of  prudence  and  decorum  which 
showed  him  to  be  unfit  for  his  post.  Lord  John  Eussell  in  a 
summary  manner  dismissed  him  from  office ;  and  in  the  debate 
which  afterwards  took  place  upon  the  matter  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  was  generally  held  at  the  time  to  have  amply  justified  ^ 
the  dismissal.  Hasty  observers  made  up  their  minds  that  Lord  k/ 
Palmerston's  career  was  at  an  end. 

Lord  Palmerston  himself  took  a  very  different  view.  He 
reckoned  confidently  that  the  nation  would  not  forget  his  power 
in  foreign  affairs.  He  knew  that  it  did  him  more  good  than  harm 
to  figure  as  the  victim  of  the  Germanism  of  the  Court.  He  saw 
that  the  press  of  the  country  was  almost  boisterously  on  his  side. 
Finally,  he  perceived  like  everybody  else  that  the  Ministry  could 
not  get  through  the  session,  and  would  probably  not  stand  long 
after  the  meeting  of  Parlidmient.^  His  opportunity  came  within 
a  few  days.  He  had  his  tit-for-tat  with  John  Russell  —  so  he 
wrote  —  and  turned  him  out  by  carrying  an  amendment  in  the 
Militia  Bill,  which  the  Minister  took  as  a  vote  of  want  of  confi- 
dence. Lord  John  Russell  immediately  resigned  (February  23), 
and  the  first  administration  of  the  Earl  of  Derby  took  the  place 
of  the  last  administration  of  pure  Whigs. 

1  See  Mr.  Ashley's  Life,  of  Lord  Palmerston,  ii.  218. 


y 


384  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1851. 

In  Cobden's  eyes  the  policy  of  tlie  Militia  Bill,  and  the  acces- 
/  sion  to  power  of  the  Protectionists,  were  equally  startling  and 
equally  ill-omened.  One  event  certainly  showed  a  revival  of  the 
military  spirit,  and  the  other  for  some  time  was  seriously  believed 
^  to  threaten  a  reaction  against  Free  Trade.  Cobden  made  a  vig- 
orous speech  against  the  proposal  for  organizing  the  militia,  con- 
tending that  we  should  be  amply  protected  by  our  navy,  if  our 
ships  were  not  systematically  sent  abroad.  He  denied  the  rea- 
sonable probability  of  invasion,  appealing  to  Lord  John  Eussell's 
emphatic  declaration  on  the  first  night  of  the  session,  that  the  re- 
lations of  peace  existed  betw^een  this  country  and  foreign  nations 
in  the  fullest  degree.  Why  should  we  suddenly  act  as  if  a  remote 
^  and  highly  improbable  contingency  were  an  assured  certainty'? 
This  point  of  view  was  not  agreeable  to  the  majority,  and  all  that 
Cobden  took  by  his  protest  was  the  assurance  from  a  member  on 
his  own  side  that  he  was  laboring  under  a  monomania  which  de- 
prived the  country  of  the  services  of  a  very  clever  man.  Cobden 
knew  very  well  what  price  he  and  his  friends  might  expect  to 
pay  for  standing  aloof  from  either  of  the  two  great  factions,  and 
refusing  to  echo  the  conventional  cries  of  the  political  market- 
place. In  the  course  of  the  previous  year  he  had  told  a  great 
meeting  of  Liberals  at  Manchester  how  he  stood.  Spiteful  news- 
papers had  begun  to  talk  of  him  as  a  disappointed  demagogue. 
"  This  disappointed  dei^iagogue,"  he  said,  "  wants  no  public  em- 
ployment ;  if  I  did,  I  might  have  had  it  before  now.  I  want  no 
favor  and  no  title.  I  want  nothing  that  any  Government  or  any 
party  can  give  me ;  and  if  I  am  in  the  House  of  Commons  at  all, 
"  it  is  to  give  my  feeble  aid  to  the  advancement  of  certain  ques- 
tions on  which  I  have  strong  convictions."  If  they  deprived  him 
of  this  power,  if  they  told  him  not  to  do  this  because  it  was  likely 
to  destroy  a  Government  with  which  he  could  have  little  sympa- 
thy, then  the  sooner  he  betook  himself  to  something  more  profit- 
able than  sitting  up  in  the  House  of  Commons  night  after  night, 
the  better  both  for  himself  and  his  friends.^ 

If  Cobden  found  little  support  from  either  the  House  of  Com- 
mons or  the  country  for  his  opinions  on  war  and  armaments,  he 
was  compensated  in  part  by  finding  that  upon  Free  Trade  at  any 
rate  there  was  no  backsliding  in  either  the  press  or  the  constitu- 
encies. The  new  Government  professed  to  leave  the  question  of 
Protection  open  until  it  should  be  convenient  to  appeal  to  the 
country.  This  made  it  impossible  for  the  Free  Traders  to  do 
anything  but  oppose  them.  If  the  Ministers  were  not  for  a  Corn 
Law,  Mr.  Bright  told  them,  let  them  say  so.  If  one  of  them  were 
authorized  boldly  to  avow  that  the  time  had  gone  by  when  any 

1  Manchester,  Feb.  23,  1851. 


iET.48.]  THE  PROTECTIONISTS  IN  OFFICE.  385 

duty  could  be  imposed  upon  corn,  and  to  promise  that  they  would 
not  tamper  with  the  taxation  with  a  view  to  compensate  certain, 
classes  for  losses  alleged  to  be  due  to  Free  Trade,  then  the  Gov- 
ernment should  certainly  never  find  him  voting  a  want  of  confi- 
dence in  them.  The  same  rather  bitter  but  perfectly  intelligible 
indifference  of  the  Manchester  school  to  tlie  ties  which  nominally 
connected  them  with  the  official  world,  shows  itself  pretty  clearly 
in  Cobden's  letters  during  this  long  crisis :  — 

"House  of  Commons,  Feb.  28.  {To  George  JVilson.) — Whilst  I 
am  Writing,  Stanley  [Lord  Derby]  is  still  speaking,  but  from  what 
I  hear  his  plan  is  to  hold  the  Corn  question  in  suspense,  on  the 
plea  of  other  grave  Parliamentary  affairs,  and  admitting  himself  in 
a  minority  in  the  Commons,  to  do  nothing  unless  forced  to  a  dis-  - 
solution  by  what  he  calls  a  factious  opposition.  The  House  of 
Commons  is  always  afraid  of  a  dissolution,  and  this  threat  may 
not  be  without  its  influences  on  Members.  But  it  appears  to  me 
that  our  course  is  clear.  We  must  not  allow  the  country  to  be 
kept  both  in  its  agricultural  and  manufacturing  interests  in  hot  ' 
water  and  confusion  for  a  year.  We  must  challenge  to  instant 
combat,  and  memorialize  the  Queen  from  all  parts  of  the  country 
to  dissolve.  This  will  give  courage  and  confidence  to  our  friends, 
and  prevent  the  Members  of  the  House  from  temporizing.  We  . 
have  everything  to  fear  from  delay.  Popular  enthusiasm  cools, 
and  the  enemy  being  in  power  will  be  sharpening  the  sword  with 
which  to  slay  us  as  soon  as  we  are  off  guard.  Let  no  other  ques- 
tion be  mixed  up  with  ours.  The  country  will  not  entertain 
other  reforms  until  our  question  is  disposed  of." 

"London,  Feb.  28.  (  „  )  —  Further  reflection,  and  the  perusal 
of  Lord  Derby's  speech,  have  confirmed  me  in  my  views.  We  - 
must  go  for  memorials  to  the  Queen  for  a  dissolution.  We  must 
mix  up  no  other  question  with  it,  because  no  other  will  interest^ 
the  public  till  it  is  settled.  We  may  talk  of  Eeform  in  Parlia- 
ment, but  I  would  have  no  resolution  excepting  upon  our  own 
question.  There  should  be  one  resolution  affirming  our  determi- 
nation to  renew  the  League  agitation,  if  necessary  to  maintain 
Free  Trade  inviolate ;  and  another  expressing  the  wish  of  the 
meeting,  for  the  interests  of  all  concerned,  to  have  the  question 
forever  settled  by  an  appeal  to  the  country,  and  therefore  praying 
the  Queen  to  dissolve  as  soon  as  the  forms  of  Parliament  admit. 
I  have  my  doubts  yet,  whether  Lord  Derby  will  dare  to  go  to  the 
country  on  the  bread  question  ;  but  if  he  should,  he  will  find  nine 
tenths  of  the  men,  women,  and  children  even  in  the  rural  districts 
dead  against  him.  There  is  no  doubt  as  to  the  result  of  a  dissolu- 
tion. Free  Trade  is  stronger  in  the  agricultural  districts  amongst  ^ 
the  mass  of  the  people,  than  you  perhaps  imagine  in  Manchester. 
There  need  not  be  too  much  sound  and  fury  in  our  proceedings. 

25 


386  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1852. 

The  very  apparition  of  the  League  will  settle  the  question.  In 
fact  it  is  the  only  thing  that  a]l  parties  at  headquarters  are 
afraid  of" 

A  couple  of  days  after  this  letter,  the  Council  of  the  League  met 
in  their  old  quarters  at  Manchester,  Crowds  from  all  parts  of 
the  country  thronged  into  the  great  room  of  Newall's  Buildings, 
and  as  one  familiar  face  after  another  was  recognized,  the  assembly 
became  almost  as  animated  as  when  the  great  struggle  was  at  its 
height.  Cobden  moved  the  first  resolution  in  a  terse  and  pithy 
speech,  Mr.  Bright  and  Mr.  Gibson  followed,  and  before  the  meet- 
ing was  over,  the  men  in  the  room  thoroughly  understood  one 
another  and  what  was  to  be  done ;  a  large  sum  of  money  had  been 
subscribed ;  and  the  plan  of  the  electoral  campaign  had  been  de- 
termined upon  and  prepared. ^ 

"  Manchester,  March  3.  {To  Mrs.  Cobden)  —  The  meeting  was 
all  I  could  wish  in  point  of  influence,  numbers,  and  earnestness. 
But  it  struck  me  that  people  with  difficulty  realize  in  their  minds 
the  necessity  of  another  effort  to  secure  Free  Trade.  However  the 
blow  will,  I  expect,  tell  decisively." 

"  March  5.  (  „  )  —  The  feeling  in  the  West  Eiding  of 
Yorkshire  is  most  intense  amongst  the  working  class.  They  will 
never  allow  the  Corn  Law  to  be  reimposed." 

"  London,  March  11.  {To  Mr.  Sturge)  — I  am  not  sure  that  I 
correctly  interpret  your  letter  to  mean  that  you  prefer  to  let  Lord 
Derby  remain  in  office  for  fear  of  seeing  back  the  Whigs.  My 
object  is  to  settle  the  Free  Trade  question  forever,  and  to  clear  the 
ground  for  other  questions.  If  in  doing  so  I  should  be  instru- 
mental in  bringing  back  the  Whigs,  it  would  not  be  my  fault.  I 
have  no  such  object  in  view,  and  agree  with  you  in  wishing  they 
could  remain  in  Opposition  for  the  rest  of  their  lives  —  or  at  least 
to  the  day  of  their  reformation.  Let  us  not  however  deceive  our- 
selves by  supposing  that  Lord  Derby  would  be  less  inclined  for 
the  Militia  than  the  Whigs.  All  the  aristocratic  parties  and  the 
Court  are  in  favor  of  more  armaments.     Our  business  is  to  try  to 

1  Cobden  usually  tried  to  get  one  salient  fact  into  a  speech.  On  this  occasion 
he  mentioned  a  fact  that  he  described  as  comprising  almost  their  main  case: —  "  Since 
the  day  when  we  laid  down  our  arms  there  has  been  imported  into  this  country  in 
gi'ain  and  flour  of  all  kinds  an  amount  of  human  subsistence  equal  to  upwards  of 
50,000,000  of  quarters  of  grain — a  larger  quantity  than  had  been  imported  from 
foreign  countries  during  the  thirty-one  years  preceding  1846 — that  is,  from  the 
peace  of  1815  down  to  the  time  at  which  we  brought  our  labors  to  a  close.  Now, 
gentlemen,  in  that  one  fact  is  comprised  our  case.  You  have  had,  at  the  lowest 
computation,  5,000,000  of  your  countrymen,  or  countrywomen,  or  children,  sub- 
sisting on  the  corn  that  has  been  brought  from  foreign  countries.  And  what  does 
that  say  ?  What  does  it  say  of  the  comfort  you  have  brought  to  the  homes  of  those 
families?  "What  does  it  say  of  the  peace  and  prosperity  and  security  of  domestic 
life  in  those  homes,  where  50,000,000  of  quarters  of  grain  extra  have  been  intro- 
duced, and  where,  but  for  your  exertions,  the  inmates  might  have  been  left  either 
i»  hopeless  penury  or  subsisting  on  potatoes  ? " 


iET.48.]  THE   PROTECTIONISTS   IN   OFFICE.  387 

make  the  people  of  a  different  opinion ;  and  when  I  say  the  peo- 
ple, I  mean  that  public  opinion  which  alone  can  enable  us  to 
break  down  the  martial  propensities  of  the  Government.  I  am 
more  and  more  convinced  that  we  have  much  to  do  with  the 
public,  before  we  can  with  any  sense  or  usefulness  quarrel  with 
this  or  that  aristocratic  party. 

"  I  have  watched  naturally  the  tone  of  the  press  upon  the  late 
(as  I  think  monstrous)  proposal  to  increase  our  armaments.  It 
is  decidedly  against  us.  I  do  not  speak  of  the  dailies,  but  of 
the  weekly  papers ;  and  I  do  not  allude  to  such  papers  as  the  Ex- 
aminer or  Spectatm%  but  to  the  Weekly  Dispatch,  read  by  artisans 
and  small  shopkeepers,  and  the  Illustrated  Weekly  News,  a 
thorough  middle-class  print.  By  these  and  such  as  these  I  have 
been  denounced  and  put  out  of  the  pale  of  practical  statesman- 
ship for  opposing  an  increase  of  armaments.  I  care  nothing  for 
this,  because  I  prefer  to  enjoy  the  pleasure  of  advocating  my  own 
views  to  the  prospects  of  office.  But  how  many  public  men  who 
have  ambition  to  gratify  will  range  themselves  alongside  of  us, 
so  long  as  the  press  is  thus  opposed  to  them  ?  To  change  the 
press,  we  must  change  public  opinion.  And,  mind,  when  I  speak 
of  the  press  I  speak  of  those  weekly  papers  which  are  really  sup- 
ported by  the  people. 

"  Never  was  the  military  spirit  half  so  rampant  in  this  country 
since  the  Peace  as  at  present.  Look  at  the  late  news  from  Ran- 
goon.^ Nobody  inquires  why  we  killed  300  Burmese.  The  papers 
applaud  the  deed  without  asking  for  a  justification.  This  makes 
about  5400  persons  killed  by  our  ships  in  the  East  during  the  last 
five  years,  without  our  having  lost  one  man  by  the  butcheries ! 
Now  give  me  Free  Trade  as  the  recognized  policy  of  all  parties  iu 
this  country,  and  I  will  find  the  best  possible  argument  against 
these  marauding  atrocities.  I  will  then  demonstrate  to  all  by 
their  own  admission  that  they  cannot  profit  by  such  proceedings. 
To  take  away  the  motive  of  self-interest  is,  after  all,  the  nearest 
way  to  influence  the  conduct  of  wicked  human  nature.  Therefore, 
as  the  moral  of  this,  I  exhort  you  to  give  the  finishing-stroke  to 
Free  Trade  as  the  best  means  of  advancing  your  peace  principles." 

"  March  20.  {To  J.  Sturge)  —  As  you  will  have  seen  by  Lord 
Derby's  speech  in  the  Lords,  the  present  Government  will  carry  a 
Militia  Bill  if  they  can.  It  is  the  question  upon  which  they  will 
try  to  raise  a  discussion  in  the  House  with  a  view  to  gain  time. 
And  Lord  John  Russell  and  his  party  are  so  hampered  with 
pledges  upon  the  subject,  that  they  cannot  offer  any  opposition 
to  at  least  an  introduction  of  the  measure.     Therefore  you  must 

^  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  Second  Burmese  "War,  which  Cobden  dealt  with 
in  the  following  year  in  his  pamphlet,  How  Wars  are  got  up  in  India.  See  Col- 
lected Writings,  vol.  ii. 


388  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1852. 

not  relax  in  your  efforts  to  prevent  the  scheme  from  being  carried 
out.     The  invasion  panic  seems  pretty  nearly  forgotten." 

"  London,  March  20.  {To  George  Wilson)  —  ....  The  Derby- 
Disraelites  are  not  going  to  give  up  their  berths  in  a  hurry,  and 
they  would  be  fools  if  they  did  so,  for  they  are  opposed  to  an 
Opposition  whose  leaders  have  not  the  pluck  (and  Dizzy's  inso- 
lence shows  that  he  knows  it)  to  stop  the  supplies.  I  have  been 
in  constant  communication  with  Lord  John  and  Graham,  but  they 
are  not  the  men  to  strike  the  blow,  and  we  are  powerless  without 
tliem.  The  excuse  they  put  forward  is  the  fear  that  some  of  the 
Peel  party  and  Palmers  ton  will  not  join  in  a  vote  of  want  of  con- 
fidence —  such  as  limiting  the  supplies,  and  that  we  might  be  in 
a  minority.  I  have  urged  upon  them  again  and  again  that  prompt- 
ness and  courage  will  carry  everybody  with  them  —  that  the  mem- 
bers on  our  side  of  the  House  will  for  the  sake  of  their  elections 
/  vote  for  the  Free  Trade  majority.  But  timidity  carries  the  day. 
And  so  I  suppose  these  men  will  be  in  office  till  November.  In 
the  mean  time  they  will  get  rid  of  their  Protectionist  pledges,  and 
try  to  reconstruct  a  Tory  party  —  and  as  we,  the  present  Opposi- 
tion, are  a  rope  of  sand  with  an  Irish  party  pledged  against  the 
Whigs,  I  see  no  reason  why  Derby  should  not  have  a  fresh  lease 
upon  a  Free  Trade  policy.  Gladstone,  Goulburn,  Sidney  Herbert, 
Palmerston,  have  more  affinity  for  the  Tories  than  for  us,  and 
nothing  but  Free  Trade  keeps  us  on  the  same  benches.  True, 
there  will  be  one  difficulty  in  the  way  of  their  making  a  party. 
What  could  they  do  with  Disraeli,  if  Gladstone  were  on  the  same 
bench  ? 

"  There  is  now  no  doubt  that  the  Protectionists  are  slipping 
away  from  their  principles  at  a  gallop,  and  we  shall  be  in  danger 
of  wasting  our  strength  in  firing  ball  cartridges  at  a  dead  lion." 

"  London,  March  23.  (  „  )  —  I  have  done  all  I  possibly 
could  with  Lord  John  to  induce  him  to  act  with  more  vigor.  He 
is  hampered  with  pledges  and  opinions  given  or  expressed  to  the 
Queen  or  Lord  Derby  when  he  went  out  of  office,  which  prevent 
him  from  taking  a  leading  part  in  advocating  an  immediate  disso- 
lution of  Parliament.  And  yet,  as  you  will  have  seen,  he  is  in 
no  way  inclined  to  let  anybody  else  lead  our  side  of  the  House. 

"  I  have  spoken  in  the  same  way  to  Sir  James  Graham,  who 
has  been  in  consultation  with  his  colleagues  of  the  late  Peel  party, 
and  I  have  a  long  letter  from  him  explaining  why  he  thinks  we 
must  be  content  for  the  present  with  the  declaration  of  Lord 
Derby.  He  fears  that  some  of  his  party  would  not  vote  for  limit- 
ing the  supplies  for  the  military  services.  But  they  still  leave  it 
open  to  deal  with  the  miscellaneous  estimates,  if  the  Government 
should  be  inclined  to  postpone  unreasonably  the  appeal  to  the 
country.     Last  night,  owing  to  the  rapidity  with  which  the  money 


^T.48.]  THE   PROTECTIONISTS   IN   OFFICE.  389 

was  voted,  there  seemed  to  be  an  impression  that  we  should  dis- 
solv^e  early  in  May. 

"  What  are  you  doing  ?  You  ought  at  once  to  make  out  a  list 
of  those  places  which  are  safe,  and  waste  no  attention  or  money 
on  them.  Then  look  to  places  like  Sunderland,  Liverpool,  Lincoln, 
Boston,  where  there  will  be  Protectionists  standing,  and  there 
you  ought  to  concentrate  your  strength  by  distribution  of  telling 
tracts  and  handbills.  Not  caricatures  or  poetry  or  sarcasm,  but 
brief  and  pithy  facts,  for  in  those  places  people  are  not  up  to 
the  mark.  Pictorial  tracts  or  handbills  are  good,  but  they  should 
be  pictorial  facts,  not  caricatures." 

"May  5.  {To  J.  Sturge.)  — I  am  not  quite  sure  yet  that  we 
may  not  draw  the  sting  from  the  Militia  Bill,  and  make  it  so  differ- 
ent a  thing  in  Committee  that  its  author  may  repudiate  it.  It  is 
thought  that  the  present  Government  is  vexed  at  having  to  carry 
the  measure  through,  and  they  will  be  far  more  sick  of  it  before 
we  have  done  with  them.  Last  night,  or  rather  this  morning  at 
one  o'clock,  in  the  heat  of  the  strife  Disraeli  was  drawn  into 
another  Protectionist  avowal,  which  will  embarrass  him  again.  In 
fact,  the  Militia  Bill  seems  destined  to  bring  no  end  of  trouble 
upon  all  Governments  who  meddle  with  it,  and  we  shall  do  our 
best  to  make  the  present  Ministers  sick  of  their  adopted  child. 
It  is  the  wretched  Whigs  alone  who  render  such  bad  measures 
possible.    But  Lord  John  seems  to  have  paid  an  ample  penalty." 

"  June  9.  (  „  )  —  I  admire  your  hopefulness,  and  must 
confess  myself  to  be  much  disgusted  and  almost  dismayed  at  the 
proceedings  on  the  Militia  Bill.  I  will  never  forgive  the  Whigs  ^ 
for  this  retrograde  step.  On  analyzing  the  division  list,  I  find 
that  in  almost  every  case,  where  it  was  possible  to  bring  public 
opinion  to  bear  upon  members,  your  party  succeeded  in  prevent-  ^ 
ing  them  from  supporting  the  third  reading.  The  majority  was 
made  up  of  county  members  (chiefly  Protectionists)  and  the 
representatives  of  small  pocket  boroughs.  This  shows  that,  if  we 
had  a  fair  representation,  you  could  hold  the  military  party  in 
check.  But  you  can  do  nothing  without  a  change  in  the  county 
representation,  and  there  is  no  county  that  sends  such  bad  mem- 
bers as  that  where  you  live." 

The  elections  for  a  new  Parliament  extended  over  the  month  of 
July.  Cobden  and  his  Conservative  colleague  again  divided  the 
representation  of  the  West  Eiding  without  a  contest.  Mr.  Gibson 
and  Mr.  Bright  won  at  Manchester  by  handsome  majorities. 
Taken  broadly  the  strength  of  parties  had  not  sliifted,  and  there 
was  no  approach  to  such  a  change  as  would  have  justified  a 
reversal  of  the  policy  of  Free  Trade.  The  Government  gained 
strength  enough  to  resist  a  vote  of  want  of  confidence,  if  it  should 
be  proposed,  but  not  strength  enough  to  carry  their  measures. 


\y 


/ 


390  •  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1852. 

What  shrewd  observers  like  Lord  Palmerston  expected  was  that 
they  would  be  beaten  upon  some  fanciful  scheme  for  relieving 
everybody  without  increasing  anybody's  burdens,  "  which  would 
be  speedily  seen  to  be  too  mountebankish  to  be  practicable."  ^ 
This  is  what  actually  happened.  Meanwhile  Cobden  and  his 
friends  did  not  relax  their  vigilance. 

"  Midhurst,  August  18.  {To  George  Wilson)  —  If  you  have 
money  in  hand,  would  it  not  be  well  to  keep  it  until  we  have 
fairly  disposed  of  the  Protectionist  party  ?  The  Government 
ought  to  be  driven  to  avow  Free  Trade  opinions,  or  be  driven 
from  office.  It  will  not  be  easy  to  do  either,  unless  the  League 
still  shows  a  formidable  front  to  all  trimmers.  We  must  not 
abandon  the  field  whilst  professing  Protectionists  hold  office. 
The  Government  will  be  in  a  difficulty  how  to  change  their  Pro- 
tectionist garments  for  a  Free  Trade  suit  without  breaking  up 
their  party.  But  our  object  is  or  ought  to  be  to  break  up  the 
County  gang,  which  exists  only  upon  the  basis  of  Protection.  Do 
not  therefore  throw  away  your  balance,  but  keep  it  and  let  the 
world  know  that  you  have  it." 

"  Midliurst,  Sept.  14,  1852.  {To  Mr.  Sturge.) —1  hold,  that  be- 
fore you  can  rationally  hope  to  reduce  the  army  or  the  navy,  you 
must  bring  the  public  mind  to  agree  to  the  abolition  of  the  militia. 
And  I  should  also,  with  all  due  deference,  say,  that  until  we  can 
recover  this  lost  ground  for  the  Peace  party  in  England,  it  will 
be  a  little  inconsistent  in  us  to  travel  abroad  to  teach  our  doc- 
trines to  other  nations.  The  establishment  of  the  militia  was  a 
disastrous  defeat  sustained  by  the  Peace  party,  and  until  we  can 
regain  our  position  of  1851,  it  is  useless  to  think  of  getting  back 
to  1835.  How  are  we  to  take  this  step  and  thus  recover  our  lost 
position  ?  I  repeat,  by  acquiring  some  influence  in  the  Counties, 
for  it  was  by  the  votes  of  county  members  in  opposition  to  a 
majority  of  the  representatives  of  boroughs  that  the  measure  was 
passed.  And  if  you  have  watched  the  announcements  in  the 
Gazette  since  the  passing  of  the  law,  you  must  have  seen  the  sin- 
ister- influences  which  were  at  work  to  carry  the  Bill.  Have  you 
marked  the  shoal  of  deputy-lieutenants  created  as  a  part  of  the 
working  machinery  of  the  law  ?  Every  magistrate  almost  in 
these  parts  has  been  gazetted  as  a  deputy-lieutenant,  and  is  of 
course  entitled  to  appear  at  Court  with  his  official  costume  and 
cocked  hat  and  feathers.  Then  have  you  observed  the  lists  of 
appointments  and  promotions  as  officers  of  the  militia  ?  There  is 
quite  a  flood  of  flunkeyism  and  patronage  in  the  counties.  Lord.s- 
Lieutenant  are  looking  patronizingly  upon  the  Squire;  and  the 
Squire's  son  is  snobbishly  looking  up  to  his  Lordship  for  a  grade 

1  Lord  Palmerston,  in  Mr.  Ashley's  Life,  ii.  247,  248. 


iET.48.]  THE    PROTECTIONISTS   IN   OFFICE.  391 

in  the  county  militia.  Then  there  is  all  the  small  patronage  for 
printers,  surgeons,  lawyers,  etc.,  with  its  necessary  consequence 
of  servility  and  demoralization  on  the  part  of  all  interested.  The 
whole  of  the  working  of  the  militia  is  calculated  to  foster  and 
strengthen  an  aristocratic  system  and  to  degrade  the  mass  of  th<} 
people." 

"  Sept  20.  {To  Mr.  Sturge.)  —  The  death  of  the  Duke  i  would, 
one  thinks,  tend  to  weaken  the  military  party.  But,  if  the  spirit  / 
survive,  it  will  find  its  champions.  After  all,  if  the  country  will 
do  such  work  as  Wellington  was  called  on  to  perform,  I  don't 
know  that  it  could  find  a  more  honest  instrument.  He  hated  jobs 
and  spoke  the  truth  (the  very  opposite  of  Marlborough),  and 
although  he  grew  rich  in  the  service,  it  was  by  the  voluntary  con- 
tributions of  the  Parliament  and  Government.  If  he  had  been 
told  to  help  himself  at  the  Exchequer,  his  modesty  and  honesty 
would  never  have  allowed  him  to  take  as  much  as  was  forced 
upon  him.  I,  who  saw  with  what  frenzy  of  admiration  he  was 
welcomed  by  all  classes  at  the  Exhibition,  can  never  honestly 
admit  that  in  what  the  Legislature  and  Government  had  done  for 
him,  they  had  exceeded  the  wishes  of  the  nation.  Let  us  hope 
that  a  more  rational  sentiment  may  be  promoted  amongst  us,  but 
we  are  slow  to  learn.  At  this  moment  we  are  doing  more  than 
any  other  people  to  keep  up  the  vast  peace  armaments  of  which 

we  complain Can  you  in  the  face  of  such  facts  travel  to 

the  Continent  to  advocate  a  reduction  of  establishments  ? " 

"  Midhurst,  October  4  {To  J.  Wilson)  —  It  having  been  de- 
cided to  hold  a  meeting,^  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said  but  to 
make  the  best  of  it.  I  think  you  are  quite  right  in  having  de- 
termined to  mix  nothing  with  the  Free  Trade  question ^ 

All  the  reflection  I  can  give  to  the  subject  confirms  me  in  the 
opinion  that  we  ought  to  confine  ourselves  in  the  first  instance  to 
the  settlement  of  the  Free  Trade  question,  without  attempting  to  ^ 
tie  to  that  proceeding  any  ulterior  plan  whether  of  a  personal  or 
political  nature.  We  are  entitled  to  at  least  a  Free  Trade  Gov- 
ernment to  represent  the  opinion  of  the  country.  If  the  present 
Administration  do  not  avow  themselves  to  have  cast  off  their  '^ 
Protectionist  opinions,  and  to  have  adopted  Free  Trade  views, 
they  ought  to  be  turned  out.  I  would  not  be  contented  by  their 
saying  that  they  will  not  attempt  to  reverse  the  policy  of  Sir  R. 
Peel  '  because  they  have  not  the  power  to  do  so.'  They  must 
profess  adhesion  to  that  policy  and  recant  their  own  errors ;  they 
must  promise  to  promote  and  extend  these  principles;  and  fail- 
ing in  all  this,  we  must  by  any  legitimate  means  drive  them  into 

1  The  Duke  of  Wellington  died  on  the  14th  of  September. 

2  A  great  meeting  of  the  League  party  in  Manchester,  in  opposition  to  the  Derby- 
Disraeli  ministry. 


392  LIFE   OP  COBDEN.  [1852. 

resignation.  Can  we  do  this  ?  All  depends  upon  the  course 
taken  by  the  Peel  party,  and  I  am  glad  to  see  by  the  tone  of 
Henley's  speech  that  the  old  bitterness  of  the  Protectionists 
towards  them  still  survives.  Indeed,  so  long  as  Disraeli  con- 
tinues at  the  head  of  the  Tory  party,  I  do  not  see  how  Gladstone, 
Sidney  Herbert,  and  the  rest  of  Peel's  followers,  can  ever  rejoin 
them.  But  much  depends  upon  the  League  pursuing  an  honest 
course.  We  must  not  look  to  the  right  or  left,  but  as  of  old 
go  with  a  single  purpose  to  our  object.  We  must  not  allow  our- 
selves to  be  used  by  the  Whigs  or  Peelites,  but  hold  the  balance 
fairly  between  them." 

Parliament  met  on  the  4th  of  November,  but  it  was  the  11th 
before  the  preliminary  formalities  were  over.  Tlie  Queen's  Speech 
contained  a  paragraph  of  a  very  oblique  kind  on  the  question 
which  was  uppermost  in  everybody's  mind.  If  Parliament  was  of 
opinion  that  recent  legislation  had  contributed  to  the  improved 
condition  of  the  country,  and  yet  had  at  the  same  time  inflicted 
injury  on  important  interests,  then  it  was  recommended  by  the 
Queen  to  consider  how  far  it  was  practicable  to  mitigate  the  in- 
jury, and  to  enable  the  country  to  meet  unrestricted  competition. 
Writing  to  his  wife  on  the  day  after  the  debate  on  the  Address, 
Cobden  says,  —  "  We  had  a  queer  tricky  allusion  to  the  Free  Trade 
question  in  the  Queen's  Speech,  which  brought  on  a  sharp  attack 
upon  the  Government  last  night,  and  as  all  parties  are  agreed  to 
force  the  Disraelites,  I  hope  we  shall  bring  matters  to  an  end 
soon.     It  is  time  we  were  done  with  the  question." 

The  process,  however,  took  a  little  time,  and  was  attended  with 
some  difficulties.  "  I  am  sorry  to  say,"  Cobden  wrote  a  few  days 
later  (November  18),  "  I  think  it  is  quite  impossible  under  any 
circumstances  that  I  can  be  released  before  the  10th  December. 
If  even  the  Government  were  upset,  there  would  still  be  certain 
things  to  be  done  which  would  take  till  that  time.  This  has  been 
luckily  a  very  fine  day.  I  have  not  been  near  the  line  of  proces- 
sion.^ But  Sale  and  Henry  Ashworth  have  both  called  since  it 
was  over,  and  they  think  people  are  disappointed.  It  is  the  last 
piece  of  paganism  of  the  kind  that  will  ever  be  performed  in 
this  country,  for  I  hear  everybody  in  private  in  tlie  House  (even 
Tories)  condemn  it.     But  nobody  dares  to  speak  out  in  public. 

"  You  will  see  by  the  paper  that  on  Thursday  Dizzy  is  to  move 
an  amendment  to  Villiers's  address.  Altogether,  what  with  this 
inconsistent  declaration  of  Free  Trade  principles  coming  from 
their  own  party,  and  this  escapade  of  Disraeli's  on  moving  the 
address  for  Wellington's  funeral,^  the  Protectionist  party  is  very 

1  The  Duke  of  "Wellington's  funeral. 

2  Mr;  Disraeli  in  his  funeral  oration  on  the  Duke  introduced  bodily  a  passage 
from  a  panegyric  delivered  by  M.  Thiers  many  years  before  on  Marshal  Gouvion  de 


iET.48.]  THE   PROTECTIONISTS   IN   OFFICE.  393 

much  demoralized,  and  will  I  think  be  broken  up  in  a  week  or 
two.  They  never  can  hold  together,  for  a  score  or  two  of  honest, 
stupid  people  will  still  hold  out,  and  in  fact  will  be  in  a  more 
creditable  plight  than  in  going  over  with  the  herd." 

"  Nov.  24.  (  „  ) — We  have  a  fresh  complication  in  the  House, 
owing  to  Palmerston  having  played  us  a  trick  in  moving  a  new 
amendment.  The  Whigs  are  very  indignant,  and  the  Liberals  are 
now  confessing  that  we  found  him  out  some  years  ago,  and  they 
now  call  him  a  traitor  and  worse.  It  is  impossible  to  say  how 
matters  will  go." 

The  story  of  these  final  manoeuvres  need  not  detain  us.  It  was 
indispensable  to  pin  the  Ministers  to  an  explicit  acceptance  of  the 
policy  of  Free  Trade.  The  Ministers  were  willing  to  give  the 
required  pledge,  but  they  sought  to  escape  the  humiliation  of  a 
formal  confession  that  the  legislation  which  they  had  resisted 
with  an  obstinacy  and  a  rancor  unsurpassed  in  political  history, 
had  been  wise,  justj  and  beneficial.  These  were  the  "three  odious 
epithets,"  as  Mr.  Disraeli  styled  them,  with  which  Mr.  Villiers 
asked  the  House  by  their  resolution  to  stamp  the  Act  of  1846. 
To  call  the  policy  just  was  particularly  unpalatable,  because,  if  it 
was  just,  then  what  wrong  was  left  for  compensation  ?  Mr.  Disraeli 
deprecated  this  revival  of  the  cries  of  exhausted  factions  and  obso- 
lete polities.  He  proposed  a  resolution  which  while  acknowledg- 
ing the  effect  of  recent  legislation  in  cheapening  provisions,  and 
binding  the  Government  unreservedly  to  adhere  to  the  policy  of 
unrestricted  competition,  still  contained  no  declaration  that  the 
opinions  of  the  Protectionist  party  had  been  mistaken  or  had  un- 
dergone any  change.  The  whole  question  turned  upon  the  way 
in  which  the  national  verdict  was  to  be  worded.  Was  this  solemn 
final  declaration  to  be  drawn  up,  Mr.  Bright  asked,  by  one  who 
had  repudiated  Free  Trade  as  Mr.  Disraeli  had  done,  or  by  one 
who  had  consistently  supported  it  as  Mr.  Villiers  had  done  ?  The 
question  was  not  an  idle  point  of  etiquette.  A  majority  of  the 
friends  of  the  Government  no  further  back  than  the  recent  elec- 
tions had  openly  declared  either  for  a  reversal  of  Sir  Eobert  Peel's 
policy,  or  for  compensation  —  the  word  that  never  fails  to  come 
into  our  ears  when  a  favored  order  is  stripped  of  some  unjust  and 
mischievous  privilege.  Under  these  circumstances,  ought  the 
House  to  tolerate  any  evasion  ? 

This  was  a  manly  statement  of  the  case.  The  interests  of  po- 
litical morality  demanded  that  the  Protectionists  should  either  be 

Saint  Cyr.  It  had  already  appeared  in  an  article  in  the  Morning  Chronicle  in  1848  ; 
but  the  writer,  a  brilliant  man  well  known  in  society,  came  forward  to  say  that  it 
was  Mr.  Disraeli  who  had  called  his  attention  to  the  passage  from  Thici-s.  The 
"escapade  "  was  singular,  and  it  was  certainly  unfortunate,  but  men  of  letters,  who 
know  the  tricks  that  memory  is  capable  of  playing,  will  hardly  think  it  incapable 
of  fair  explanation. 


394  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1852. 

forced  publicly  to  recant  an  error  which  they  had  upheld  with  so 
much  stupidity  and  so  much  virulence,  and  in  some  cases  with 
such  unscrupulous  hypocrisy  and  want  of  principle,  or  else  that 
on  this  issue,  and  no  other,  they  should  be  driven  from  power. 
But  the  complex  play  of  party  combinations  seldom  permits  these 
plain  and  unsophisticated  courses.  It  did  not  suit  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  that  the  Government  should  be  turned  out  too  soon.  His 
plans  for  the  succession  were  not  ripe.  A  hurried  crisis  might 
make  Lord  John  Eussell  again  Prime  Minister,  and  under  him 
Lord  Palmerston  was  resolved  not  to  serve.  A  little  more  time 
was  needed  to  clear  this  up,  and  accordingly,  with  a  view  of  saving 
the  Ministry  from  a  repulse  which  would  for  his  purposes  have 
been  premature,  Lord  Palmerston  suggested  a  third  form  of  reso- 
lution which  would  content  Liberals,  and  which  Protectionists 
might  swallow.  It  became  evident  that  this  would  meet  the 
wishes  of  important  sections  of  the  House,  always  ready  to  be 
captivated  by  anything  that  wears  the  air  of  moderation  and  com- 
promise. Mr.  Disraeli  perceived  that  he  was  saved,  and  withdrew 
his  own  amendment  in  favor  of  Lord  Palmerston's.  Cobden  now 
made  his  first  direct  attack  on  Lord  Palmerston,  and  he  made  it 
in  very  straightforward  terms.  But  in  the  long-run  Mr.  Villiers's 
motion  was  rejected  by  a  majority  of  eighty,  and  then  Lord  Palm- 
erston's was  carried  by  a  majority  of  four  hundred  and  fifteen. 

The  field  was  now  clear  for  Mr.  Disraeli's  Budget.  It  had  been 
awaited  with  eager  expectation.  The  Government  was  without 
weight,  but  it  was  not  unpopular.  There  was  no  general  anxiety 
to  see  the  Whigs  back  again.  A  miracle  of  financial  talent  might 
still  save  the  Ministry,  though  it  had  neither  political  principles 
nor  administrative  experience.  There  was  a  vivid  curiosity  of  a 
personal  and  dramatic  kind.  Men  wondered  how  the  skilful  gladi- 
ator would  acquit  himself,  who  had  never  been  in  office  until  he 
was  made  leader  of  the  House  of  Commons.  In  a  few  hours  after 
Mr.  Disraeli  had  stated  his  plans,  it  seemed  as  if  they  were  a 
success.  One  thing  at  any  rate  was  clear  ;  Free  Trade  was  safe. 
"  The  Budget,"  Cobden  wrote  to  Mr.  George  Wilson,  the  day  after 
Mr.  Disraeli's  speech  (December  4),  *'  has  finally  closed  the  con- 
troversy with  Protection.  Dizzy  has  in  the  most  impudent  way 
thrown  over  the  '  local  burdens,'  as  he  did  before  a  fixed  duty.^ 
The  League  may  be  dissolved  when  you  like." 

When  the  discussion  on  the  ministerial  proposals  opened,  a 
week  later,  it  was  at  once  seen  that  the  first  favorable  impression 

1  When  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  announced  that  he  was  not  going  to 
recommend  any  change  whatever  in  the  system  of  raising  the  local  taxes,  a  good 
deal  of  loud  and  derisive  triumph  was  exhibited  on  the  other  side.  "Oh,"  said 
Mr.  Disraeli  with  composure,  "there  are  greater  subjects  for  us  to  consider  than  the 
triumph  of  obsolete  opinions." 


JJt.48.]  the  protectionists   IN  OFFICE.  395 

had  been  a  mistake,  and  that  they  could  not  stand  the  heavy  fire 
which  was  now  opened  upon  them  by  all  the  ablest  and  most  ex- 
perienced men  in  the  House.  All  Mr.  Disraeli's  energy,  self-pos-  . 
session,  and  resource  were  no  match  in  defending  a  plan  that  was  / 
hollow  and  vicious  in  itself,  against  the  forces  that  were  now 
combined  to  overthrow  him.  Among  other  shifts,  he  conceived 
the  idea  of  detaching  the  Manchester  party  from  the  Whigs  and 
the  Peelites.  He  asked  one  of  their  leaders  to  call  upon  him. 
"  Protection,"  he  said  to  the  illustrious  Free  Trader,  "  is  done  with. 
That  quarrel  is  at  an  end.  If  you  turn  us  out,  you  will  only  have 
the  Whigs  in.  And  what  have  the  Whigs  done  for  you  ?  Tbey 
will  never  do  anything  for  you."  As  a  matter  of  fact  Lord  Pahn- 
erston's  manoeuvre  had  made  the  Free  Traders  even  less  friendly 
to  the  Whigs  than  they  had  been  before.  But  it  was  impossible 
that  Economic  Liberals  could  support  a  Budget  so  fantastic  and  ^ 
unsound.  It  proposed  to  repeal  the  malt-tax  to  please  the  farm- 
ers, and  then  to  reimburse  the  exchequer  by  an  increase  of  the 
house-tax,  which  was  of  course  chiefly  payable  in  the  towns.  "  We 
don't  want  the  Whigs  to  give  us  office,"  said  Mr.  Disraeli's  visitor. 
"  We  don't  think  of  that.  In  any  case,  we  cannot  support  the 
new  house-tax.  And  there  are  other  things  in  your  Budget  which 
we  think  wrong."  So  the  interview  came  to  an  end,  Cobden 
spoke  against  the  Ministerial  plan  in  the  course  of  the  debate,  but 
apparently  with  rather  less  powder  than  usual.  Mr.  Disraeli  wound 
up  a  vehement  defence  of  himself  by  an  invective  against  political 
coalitions.  He  had  himself,  it  is  true,  a  few  days  before  been  a 
party  to  an  attempt  to  coalesce  with  Lord  Palmerston.  But  noth- 
ing could  save  him  against  the  union  of  Whigs,  Peelites,  and  Eco- 
nomic Liberals,  and  he  was  beaten  by  a  majority  of  nineteen.  The 
next  day  Lord  Derby  resigned  (December  17),  and  the  Aberdeen 
Administration  w^as  formed.  Tlie  long  deferred  fusion  took  place 
between  the  chief  followers  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  their  old  adver- 
saries. Philosophic  Eadicalism  was  represented  in  the  cabinet 
by  Sir  William  Molesworth.  The  Economic  Piadicalism  of  Cob- 
den and  his  friends  was  left  out,  as  Mr.  Disraeli  had  foretold. 
The  time  speedily  came  when  Cobden  was  driven  to  say  that  he 
never  repented  so  much  of  a  vote  in  his  life  as  of  that  which  he 
had  now  just  given. 


396  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1852. 


CHAPTEE  XXIII. 

THE  PANIC  OF   1853. 

Some  have  noticed  it  as  an  odd  coincidence  that  the  voting  for  the 
Second  Empire  took  place  three  days  after  the  funeral  of  the 
Duke  of  Wellington.  We  might  picture  to  ourselves,  said  Cob- 
den,  the  third  Napoleon  rising  from  the  yet  open  tomb  of  the 
vanquisher  of  the  first.     That  event  of  sinister  omen  for  France 

y  naturally  roused  considerable  disquiet  in  England.  But  what  had 
been  a  natural  disquiet  was  exaggerated  by  the  press  and  a  cer- 
tain influential  class  of  politicians  into  a  fit  of  angry  and  violent 
alarm.  The  massacre  of  unarmed  citizens  on  the  boulevards  with 
"which  Louis  Napoleon  had  cowed  Paris  and  sealed  his  usurpation, 

V  had  filled  England  with  a  just  and  righteous  horror.  But  from 
reprobation  of  this  deed  of  bloodshed  to  an  invasion  panic,  there 
ought  to  have  been  a  long  step.  Statesmen  at  least,  whether 
journalists  or  actors  in  politics,  might  have  been  expected  to  ab- 
stain from  flogging  the  public  mind  into  a  state  of  furious  appre- 
hension. Especially  is  this  true  of  statesmen  who,  like  Lord 
Palmerston,  had  been  the  first  in  the  Days  of  December  to  ap- 
plaud the  President  for  tearing  up  the  Constitution  and  throwing 
the  national  representatives  into  prison.  Lord  Palmerston,  how- 
ever, who  notwithstanding  his  astuteness  and  his  high  spirits  had 
a  strong  dash  of  honest  stupidity  in  his  composition,  had  got  it 
into  his  head  that  steamships  had  thrown  a  bridge  across  the 
British  Channel.  It  was  now  perfectly  possible,  he  said,  that  all 
England  might  waken  up  some  morning  to  find  that  50,000  French- 
men had  landed  on  her  shores  in  the  course  of  the  previous  night. 
It  was  in  vain  that  military  and  naval  authorities  demonstrated 
the  physical  impossibility  of  this  electric  suddenness  of  invasion. 
It  was  in  vain  that  statesmen  like  Sir  Eobert  Peel  had  asked  the 
House  to  figure  to  itself  the  surprise  with  which  Lord  Palmerston 
himself,  sitting  in  Downing  Street  with  all  the  threads  of  Euro- 
pean diplomacy  concentrated  like  so  many  telegraphic  wires  in 
his  cabinet,  would  hear  that  on  that  day  fortnight  150,000  men 
w^ere  to  be  landed  on  the  shores  of  Great  Britain.  Lord  Palmer- 
ston held  to  his  fixed  idea.  During  Peel's  Ministry  he  had  so  in- 
cessantly asked  alarmist  questions,  that  even  Sir  Eobert  himself 
began  to  think  of  a  Militia  Bill.  Lord  John  Eussell  was  no  sooner 
in  office  than  the  same  influence  was  brought  to  bear,  and  in  due 
time  led  to  the  Militia  Bill  which  incidentally  brought  his  Minis- 


V 


^T.48.]  THE  PANIC   OF  1853.  397 

try  to  an  end.  Lord  Derby's  first  measure  on  taking  his  prede- 
cessor's place  was  to  bring  in  another  Militia  Bill,  and  the  ener- 
getic support  which  was  given  to  it  by  Lord  Palmerston  was  one 
of  the  chief  secrets  of  its  success. 

The  organization  of  the  militia  was  followed  on  the  erection  of 
the  French  Empire  by  an  increase  in  each  branch  of  the  two  ser- 
vices. Every  condition  was  present  which  according  to  Cobden's 
diagnosis  favored  the  growth  of  an  invasion  panic.  The  country 
was  very  prosperous.  Under  the  influence  of  Free  Trade  and  the 
gold  discoveries,  the  exports  had  risen  in  hve  years  from  fifty  to 
one  hundred  millions  sterling  per  annum.  The  manufacturers 
were  rolling  in  new  opulence.  The  revenue  was  satisfactory. 
The  country  gentlemen  found  that  they  were  not  ruined  after  all, 
but  on  the  contrary  were  getting  better  rents  than  ever.  There 
was,  moreover,  a  not-  unnatural  reaction  against  the  outburst  of j 
pacific  and  fraternal  exaggerations  to  which  the  Great  Exhibition' 
had  given  rise.  The  death  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  and  the 
recapitulation  in  a  thousand  funeral  orations  of  his  splendid 
exploits,  had  turned  men's  minds  to  all  the  pomp  and  circum- 
stance of  war,  to  heroic  campaigns,  to  glorious  and  crowning 
victories. 

When  the  nation  is  in  the  humor  to  indulge  itself  in  the  luxury 
of  a  panic,  the  mood  never  declines  for  lack  of  nourishment.  The 
oracles  of  the  military  and  naval  clubs  hurried  to  the  Times  with 
agitating  communications.  Every  half-pay  officer  in  the  country 
had  his  own  peculiar  alarm  and  his  own  favorite  plan.  The  coun- 
ters of  the  booksellers  were  strewn  with  pamphlets  like  snowflakes, 
containing  a  Few  Observations  on  Invasion,  Brief  Suggestions  for 
a  Reserve  Force,  Short  Notes  on  National  Defence,  Plain  Propo- 
sals for  a  Maritime  Militia,  Thoughts  on  the  Peril  of  Portsmouth. 
Every  morning  a  fresh  and  more  terrible  paragraph  sent  a  thrill 
round  the  breakfast-table.  Tliere  was  a  French  plot  to  secure  a 
naval  station  in  the  West  Indies.  General  Changarnier  had  di- 
vulged a  secret  plan  for  seizing  the  metropolis.  The  French  troops 
were  tired  of  Rome,  and  were  jealous  of  their  share  in  the  sack  of 
London.  The  great  shipbuilders  on  the  Clyde  had  received  an 
order  for  steam  frigates  from  the  French  Government.  A  French 
man-of-war  had  actually  appeared  at  Dover.  It  was  to  no  pur- 
pose that  each  paragraph  was  demolished  the  very  day  after  its 
publication.  The  Frenchman  had  been  driven  to  Dover  by  stress 
of  weather ;  General  Changarnier  said  that  his  alleged  plan  was 
absolutely  without  foundation;  the  shipbuilders  solemnly  declared 
that  no  order  for  steam  frigates  had  come  into  the  Clyde.  All 
this  made  no  difference,  and  the  panic  ran  its  course.  As  Cobden 
justly  said,  nothing  could  surpass  the  childlike  simplicity  with 
which  every  absurd  and  improbable  rumor  was  believed,  unless  it 


398  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1852. 

were  the  stolid  scepticism  with  which  all  offers  to  demonstrate 
their  falsehood  were  rejected.^ 

Cobden  was  proud  to  recall  that  he  and  his  friends  in  face  of 
this  outcry  took  the  part  which  had  been  taken  by  the  great 
political  leaders  who  addressed  our  forefathers  half  a  century  be- 
fore, and  who  bore  the  most  honored  names  in  the  history  of 
English  Liberalism.  Nothing  pleased  him  better  than  to  remind 
those  who  taunted  him  with  his  alliance  with  the  Peace  Society, 
that  the  Society  of  Friends  co-operated  with  Mr.  Fox  in  trying  to 
prevent  the  war  of  1793,  and  that  Mr.  Fox  was  not  at  all  ashamed 
to  write  to  Mr.  Gurney,  of  Norwich,  begging  him  to  get  up  county 
meetings,  and  to  send  petitions  whether  from  Quakers  or  others 
to  the  House  of  Commons.  Cobden  spent  the  autumn  between 
y/  the  general  election  and  the  meeting  of  Parliament  in  turning 
over  these  things.  His  industrious  meditations  took  shape  in  a 
pamphlet  which  he  intended  to  do  something  to  appease  the  per- 
turbation of  the  popular  spirit.  Before  he  actually  sat  down  to 
composition,  he  wrote  an  interesting  letter  to  his  friend,  Mr. 
Thomasson,  of  Bolton  :  — 

"  Midhurst,  Sept.  27.  —  The  course  pursued  by  Brougham  and  all 
,  the  Whig  party  at  the  close  of  the  war,  in  opposition  to  the  large 
^/  standing  armaments  proposed  to  be  maintained  by  the  Tories, 
was  precisely  that  which  the  Peace  party  are  now  taking  in  oppo- 
sition to  both  Whigs  and  Tories.  The  former  have  since  that 
time  been  in  power,  and  there  is  perfect  truth  in  the  sarcasm  that 
the  Whigs  are  Tories  in  office,  and  the  Tories  are  Whigs  when 
out  of  office.  But  the  misfortune  is  that,  after  having  been  in 
power  and  committed  to  all  the  bad  measures  of  a  Whig  Govern- 
ment, the  Whigs  are  rendered  quite  useless  as  an  Opposition ;  and 
we  have  now  arrived  at  that  point  that  whether  on  the  right  or 
left  hand  side  of  the  Speaker's  chair,  the  Liberal  party  headed  by 
\>.''  the  Whigs  are  incapable  of  doing  any  good  for  the  country.  But 
before  you  and  I  (men  of  peace  as  we  are)  find  fault  with  the 
Whig  chiefs,  let  us  ask  ourselves  candidly  whether  the  country 
at  large  is  in  favor  of  any  other  policy  than  that  which  has  been 
y  pursued  by  the  aristocracy,  Whig  and  Tory,  for  the  last  century 
and  a  half  ?  The  man  who  impersonated  that  policy  more  than 
any  other  was  the  Duke  of  Wellington ;  and  I  had  the  daily  op- 
portunity of  witnessing  at  the  Great  Exhibition  last  year  that  all 
other  objects  of  interest  sank  to  insignificance  even  in  that  collec- 
tion of  a  world's  wonders  when  he  made  his  entry  in  the  Crystal 
Palace.  The  frenzy  of  admiration  and  enthusiasm  which  took 
possession  of  a  hundred  thousand  people  of  all  classes  at  the  very 
announcement   of  his   name,  was   one  of  the   most   impressive 

1  See  Cobderi's  account  in  his  pamphlet,  written  in  1862,   The  Three  Panics. 
Political  Writings,  ii.  235-270. 


J;t.48.]  the  panic   of  1853.  399 

lessons  I  ever  had  of  the  real  tendencies  of  the  English  char- 
acter  The  recent  demonstration  at  the  death  of  the  Duke 

was  in  keeping  with  what  I  have  described.  Now  what  does  all 
this  imply  but  a  war-spirit  in  the  population  ?  As  for  the  claims 
of  the  old  warrior  to  popularity  as  a  statesman,  they  amount  to 
this,  that  he  resisted  two  reforms,  Catholic  Emancipation  and  the 
Eeform  Bill,  until  we  were  on  the  verge  of  rebellion,  and  yielded 
at  last  avowedly  only  to  avoid  civil  war;  and  in  a  third  case 
(repeal  of  the  Corn  Law)  he  gave  in  his  acquiescence  to  Peel 
after  his  old  policy  had  plunged  one  half  the  kingdom  into  the 
horrors  of  plague,  pestilence,  and  famine.  No,  depend  upon  it, 
the  world  never  yet  knew  so  warlike  and  aggressive  a  people  as 
the  British. 

"  I  wish  to  see  a  map  on  Mercator's  projection  published,  with 
a  red  spot  to  mark  the  places  on  sea  and  land  where  bloody  bat- 
tles have  been  fought  by  Englishmen.  It  would  be  found  that, 
unlike  every  other  people,  we  have  during  seven  centuries  been 
fighting  with  foreign  enemies  everywhere  excepting  on  our  own 
soil.  Need  another  word  be  said  to  prove  us  the  most  aggressive  \y 
race  under  the  sun  ?  The  Duke's  career  is  no  exception  to  this 
rule.  His  victories  in  India  were  a  page  in  those  bloody  annals 
for  which  God  will  assuredly  exact  a  retribution  from  us  or  our 
children ;  and  his  triumphs  on  the  Continent  can  never  be  truly 
said  to  have  been  achieved  in  defence  of  our  own  independence 
or  liberty.  His  descent  upon  the  Peninsula  was  made  after 
Nelson  had  at  the  battle  of  Trafalgar  destroyed  Napoleon's  powder 
at  sea.  From  that  moment  we  were  as  safe  from  molestation  in  -^y 
our  island  home,  as  if  we  had  inhabited  another  planet.  Yet  from 
that  time  till  the  close  of  the  war  we  spent  four  or  five  hundred 
millions  sterling  upon  Continental  quarrels.  '  Oh,'  but  say  the  . 
flatterers  of  our  national  vain-gloriousness,  *  we  saved  the  liberties 
of  Europe.'  Precious  liberties  truly !  Look  at  them  from  Cadiz 
to  Moscow  !  The  moral  of  all  this  is  that  w^e  have  to  pull  against 
wind  and  tide  in  trying  to  put  down  the  warlike  spirit  of  our 
countrymen.  It  must  be  done  by  showing  them  that  their  ener- 
gies have  been  perverted  to  a  disastrous  course,  so  far  as  their  -^ 
interests  are  concerned,  by  a  ruling  class  which  has  reaped  all 
the  honors  and  emoluments,  while  the  nation  inherits  the  burdens 
and  responsibilities.     Our  modern  history  must  be  rewritten." 

The  pamphlet  in  which  he  now  engaged,  "1792  and  1853,  in  , 
lliree  Letters,''  was,  in  fact,  a  modest  attempt  on  Cobden's  own 
part  to  rewrite  in  his  own  way  one  very  relevant  episode  of  that 
modern  history  of  which  he  speaks  in  his  letter.  He  makes  no 
pretence  of  an  original  historical  inquiry  into  the  sources  of  the 
war  between  England  and  France  in  1793.  What  he  does  is  to 
show,  and  he  finds  an  easy  task  in  showing  from  the  speeches  of 


400  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1853. 

leading  members  of  the  war  Cabinet,  as  well  as  from  the  narratives 
of  Tory  historians  like  Scott  and  Alison,  that  the  alleged  grounds 
of  the  war  w^ere  not  the  real  motives  either  of  the  English  Gov- 
ernment or  the  English  people.  The  Erench  had  opened  the 
navigation  of  the  Scheldt ;  they  had  invaded  Holland ;  the  Con- 
vention had  passed  the  famous  decree  of  fraternity,  declaring  in 
the  name  of  the  French  nation  that  it  would  grant  assistance  to 
all  peoples  who  should  wish  to  recover  their  liberty,  and  charging 
the  executive  power  to  give  the  necessary  orders  to  its  generals. 
These  were  the  three  nominal  grounds  of  quarrel.  The  real 
ground  behind  them  all  was  the  violent  hatred  which  a  conserva- 
tive nation  like  the  English  inevitably  felt  towards  the  revolu- 
tionary policy  of  France.  For  the  actual  motives  we  must  look 
to  Burke's  philippics,  and  not  to  Lord  Grenville's  despatches. 
But  deep-rooted  hatred  can  be  no  evidence  that  a  war  prompted 
by  it  is  necessary  or  just;  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  there  are  very 
few  persons  now  alive  who,  having  examined  the  records  of 
English  policy  in  1793,  do  not  condemn  the  war  of  that  year  as 
both  impolitic  and  unnecessary.  Cobden  would  be  justified  by 
most  modern  students  of  the  period  in  his  contempt  for  the  plea 
that  the  French  were  the  first  to  declare  war.  It  was  manifest 
from  the  middle  of  December,  1792,  that  the  Eno-lish  Government 
intended  to  join  the  Continental  powers,  and  for  the  very  plain 
reason,  apart  from  the  captivity  and  imminent  death  of  the  king, 
that  France  had  shown  herself  more  than  their  match.  For  a 
time  it  was  believed  that  the  Eevolution  had  broken  up  the  army 
and  dispersed  the  resources  of  the  country.  It  was  expected  that 
Prussia  and  Ailstria  would  find  the  restoration  of  the  old  system 
in  France  easy  to  accomplish.  For  so  long  the  English  Ministry 
looked  with  a  certain  complacency  on  events  which  promised 
finally  to  lower  their  natural  rival,  and  to  punish  France  for  the 
aid  and  comfort  that  she  had  bestowed  on  the  rebellion  of  the 
American  colonies  against  Great  Britain. 

Of  course,  if  Cobden  had  professed  to  be  writing  a  history  of 
that  momentous  epoch,  he  would  have  had  to  take  many  circum- 
stances into  account  which  for  his  purpose  at  the  moment  might 
fairly  be  allowed  to  go  for  nothing.  Chauvelin,  for  instance,  was 
not  so  humble  and  innocent  an  emissary  as  Cobden's  language 
might  leave  us  to  suppose ;  he  was  a  coxcomb  without  either  judg- 
ment or  address.  The  success  of  the  French  arms,  again,  coming 
after  a  period  of  intense  apprehension,  nursed  in  the  Convention 
an  arrogant  and  overbearing  spirit  which  would  probably  have 
made  the  maintenance  of  peace  with  even  a  less  proud  Govern- 
ment than  that  of  Great  Britain  extremely  difficult.  What  is 
\  ,  clear  is  that  it  would  have  been  well  for  England,  and  probably 
for  Europe  too,  if  the  British  Government  had  done  their  best  to 


^T.49.]  THE   PANIC   OF   1853.  401 

remain  at  peace  with  the  new  Eepublic.  And  what  is  equally 
clear  is,  as  Cobden  showed,  that  the  British  Goveniment  when 
tlie  crisis  came,  so  far  from  doing  their  best  to  remain  at  peace, 
hurried  violently  into  war.  The  many  elastic  possibilities  of 
history  did  not  concern  a  writer  whose  pressing  object  was  to  de- 
molish the  opinion,  which  the  feeling  of  tlie  moment  when  Cobden 
wrote  made  so  mischievous,  that  it  was  the  restless  and  aggressive 
spirit  of  France  which  first  provoked  the  great  war  that  opened 
upon  Europe  in  1792.  This  task,  as  I  have  said,  was  tolerably 
easy,  and  nobody  who  has  fully  considered  the  circumstances  of 
the  Declaration  of  Pilnitz  will  deny  that  though  there  were  politi- 
cal parties  in  France  to  whom  the  foreign  war  that  was  forced 
upon  them  was  for  domestic  reasons  not  unwelcome,  yet  Cobden 
was  strictly  right  in  his  thesis  that  the  French  Government  had, , 
in  1792,  given  no  ground  of  offence  to  foreign  nations.  "  It  is  im- 
possible," Cobden  breaks  out,  in  the  fulness  and  sincerity  of  his 
emotion,  "  to  read  the  speeches  of  Fox  at  this  time,  without  feel- 
ing one's  heart  yearn  with  admiration  and  gratitude  for  the  bold 
and  resolute  manner  in  which  he  opposed  the  war,  never  yielding 
and  never  repining  under  the  most  discouraging  defeats ;  and,  al- 
though deserted  by  many  of  his  friends  in  the  House,  taunted  with 
having  only  a  score  of  followers  left,  and  obliged  to  admit  that  he 
could  not  walk  the  streets  without  being  insulted  by  hearing  tha 
charge  made  against  him  of  carrying  on  an  improper  correspond- 
ence with  the  enemy  in  France,  yet  bearing  it  all  with  uncom- 
plaining manliness  and  dignity.  The  annals  of  Parliament  do  not 
record  a  nobler  struggle  in  a  nobler  cause." 

No  part  of  the  pamphlet  was  more  likely  to  be  useful  than  that 
in  which  Cobden  explained  to  his  countrymen  that  the  French,, 
nation,  instead  of  being  ashamed  of  the  Revolution,  and  envious 
of  the  social  advancement  of  England,  as  we  in  the  fatuousness 
of  national  vanity  used  to  persist  in  believing,  do  in  fact  cling  to 
the  work  of  1789  with  appreciation,  thankfulness,  and  invincible 
tenacity ;  and  that  men  of  the  most  opposite  opinions  on  every 
other  subject,  agree  that  to  the  Revolution  in  its  normal  phases 
France  is  indebted  for  a  more  rapid  advance  in  civilization,  wealth, 
and  happiness,  than  was  ever  previously  made  by  any  community 
of  a  similar  extent  in  the  same  period  of  time.  No  people,  he 
went  on,  have  ever  clung  with  more  unshaken  stanchness  to  the  ^ 
essential  principles  and  main  objects  of  a  Revolution  than  have  the 
French.  When  you  say  that  their  new  Emperor  is  absolute  and  his 
will  omnipotent,  remember  that  there  are  three  things  which  even 
he  dare  not  attempt  to  do.  He  dare  not  attempt  to  endow  with 
land  and  tithes  one  sect  as  the  exclusively  paid  religion  of  the  State. 
He  could  not  create  a  system  of  primogeniture  and  entail.  And 
finally  he  could  not  impose  a  tax  on  succession  to  personal  property, 

26 


■x/' 


402  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1853. 

and  leave  real  property  free.  In  England  we  have  all  three.  "  I 
am  penning  these  pages,"  said  Cobden,  sitting  in  his  little  study  at 
Dunford,  "in  a  maritime  county.  Stretching  from  the  sea,  right 
across  to  the  verge  of  the  next  county,  and  embracing  great  part  of 
the  parish  in  which  I  sit,  are  the  estates  of  three  proprietors,  which 
extend  in  almost  unbroken  masses  for  upwards  of  twenty  miles. 
The  residence  of  one  of  them  is  surrounded  with  a  walled  park  ten 
miles  in  circumference.  Well,  if  Louis  Napoleon  were  to  create 
three  such  estates  in  France,  it  would  be  fatal  to  him.  Tell  the 
eight  millions  of  landed  proprietors  in  France  that  they  shall 
exchange  lots  with  the  English  people,  where  the  laborer  who 
cultivates  the  farm  has  no  more  proprietary  interest  in  the  soil 
than  the  horses  he  drives,  and  he  will  be  stricken  with  horror." 

All  this  was  said,  not  to  urge  the  land  question,  but  to  press 
upon  his  countrymen  the  habit  of  which  of  all  others  they  stand 
most  in  need,  of  learning  to  tolerate  the  feelings  and  predilections 
of  other  nations.  "Let  us  spare  our  pity,"  he  insisted,  "where 
people  are  contented ;  and  withhold  our  contempt  from  a  nation 
who  hold  what  they  prize  by  the  vigilant  exercise  of  public 
opinion."  What  the  Frenchman  cherishes  is  equality ;  what  the 
Englishman  cherishes  is  personal  liberty.  The  poorest  cottager 
on  any  of  the  three  estates  that  encircle  Heyshott  "  feels  that  his 
personal  liberty  is  sacred,  and  he  cares  little  for  equality.  And 
here  I  will  repeat,"  says  Cobden,  "  that  I  would  rather  live  in  a 
country  where  this  feeling  in  favor  of  individual  freedom  is  jeal- 
ously cherished,  than  be  without  it  in  the  enjoyment  of  all  the 
principles  of  the  French  Constituent  Assembly."  It  is  passages 
like  this  that  help  us  to  understand  the  secret  of  Cobden's  po- 
sition, and  of  his  attraction.  He  was  so  much  of  an  Englishman, 
while  he  strove  to  show  how  Englishmen  might  become  more 
generous,  more  noble,  and  more  just  in  their  judgments  on  other 
nations. 

His  words  about  Louis  Napoleon  contained  an  admirable  illus- 
tration of  the  same  ever  wholesome  lesson:  —  "It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  declare  that,  were  Louis  Napoleon  an  Englishman,  or 
I  a  Frenchman,  however  small  a  minority  of  opponents  he  might 
have,  I  should  be  one  of  them ;  —  that  is  all  I  have  to  say  in  the 
matter;  for  anything  more. would  in  my  opinion  be  mere  imper- 
tinence towards  the  French  people,  who  for  reasons  best  known 
to  themselves  acquiesce  in  his  rule."  And  as  to  the  first  and 
stronger  Napoleon,  the  French  feeling  for  his  memory  which  had 
just  been  so  strikingly  manifested  in  the  immense  and  spontaneous 
vote  for  the  Empire  of  his  nephew,  became  an  intelligible  senti- 
ment in  Cobden's  pages,  instead  of  remaining  the  wicked  mania 
that  it  appeared  to  the  majority  of  his  countrymen.  We,  he  said, 
who  have  just  paid  almost  pagan  honors  to  the  remains  of  a  gen- 


^T.49.]  THE   PANIC   OF   1853.         •  403 

eral  who  fought  the  battles  of  the  Coalition,  —  "  what  should  we 
have  done  in  honor  of  those  soldiers  who  beat  back  from  our 
frontiers  confederate  armies  of  literally  every  nation  in  Christian 
Europe,  except  Sweden,  Denmark,  and  Switzerland  ?  Should  we 
not,  if  we  were  Frenchmen,  be  greater  worshippers  of  the  name  of 
Napoleon,  if  possible,  than  we  are  of  Wellington  and  Nelson,  and 
with  greater  reason  ?  Should  we  not  forgive  him  his  ambition, 
his  selfishness,  his  despotic  rule  ?  Would  not  every  fault  be  for- 
gotten in  the  recollection  that  he  humbled  Prussia,  who  had  with- 
out provocation  assailed  us  in  the  throes  of  a  domestic  revolution, 
and  that  he  dictated  terms  at  Vienna  to  Austria,  who  had  actually 
begun  the  dismemberment  of  our  ov/n  territory  ?  .  .  .  .  Should 
we  not  indulge  a  feeling  of  proud  defiance  in  electing  for  the  chief 
of  the  State  the  next  heir  to  that  great  military  hero,  the  child 
and  champion  of  the  Eevolution,  whose  family  had  been  especially 
proscribed  by  the  coalesced  powers  before  whom  he  finally  fell  ? 
Yes,  however  wise  men  might  moralize,  and  good  men  mourn, 
these  would  under  the  circumstances,  1  am  sure,  be  the  feelings 
and  passions  of  Englishmen,  ay,  and  probably  in  even  a  stronger 
degree  than  they  are  now  cherished  in  France." 

Cobden  would  certainly  have  been  the  last  man  in  the  world  to 
deny  that  there  was  another  and  historically  truer  version  of  Na- 
poleon's career  than  the  version  of  the  Napoleonic  Legend ;  but 
his  sound  principle  that  masses  of  men  never  accept  either  maxims 
or  idols  without  something  generous,  rational,  and  worthy  of  our 
respect  in  the  motives  which  sanctioned  their  acceptance,  drew 
him  naturally  to  this  interpretation  of  Napoleon's  position  in  the 
memory  of  France.  The  interpretation,  if  it  be  not  historically 
justifiable,  is  at  least  dramatically  true.  It  represents  what 
Frenchmen  were  thinking  of;  and  civilization  will  have  taken  one 
of  its  most  enormous  strides,  when  the  citizens  of  each  nation  do 
not  shrink  from  the  duty  of  doing  justice  to  the  better  mind  of 
every  other. 

The  pamphlet  winds  up  with  Cobden's  invariable  moral,  that 
instead  of  lavishing  interest  on  foreign  nations  who  neither  seek  / 
nor  need  it.  Englishmen  will  do  better  to  turn  their  attention  to 
the  defects  of  their  own  social  condition.  "  I  have  travelled 
much,"  he  says,  "  and  always  with  an  eye  to  the  state  of  the  great 
majority,  who  everywhere  constitute  the  toiling  base  of  the  social 
pyramid ;  and  I  confess  I  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
tliere  is  no  country  where  so  much  is  required  to  be  done  before 
the  mass  of  the  people  become  what  it  is  pretended  they  are,  what 
they  ought  to  be,  and  what  I  trust  they  will  yet  be,  as  in  England." 
The  justice,  the  real  patriotism,  the  hope,  of  these  closing  pages 
are  all  indeed  admirable ;  and  the  illustration  from  the  history 
of  the  Irish  famine  of  the  possibility  of  equalling  the  soldier's 


\y 


404  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1853. 

bravery  and  devotion  in  other  fields  besides  the  field  of  battle,  is 
one  of  the  most  striking  passages  in  English  prose,  not  only  for 
the  truth  of  its  feeling,  but  for  the  energy,  simplicity,  and  noble 
pathos  of  its  expression.^ 

The  pamphlet  v^as  published  in  the  course  of  the  ministerial 
crisis,  during  the  formation  of  the  new  Coalition  Ministry. 
Shortly  afterwards,  and  almost  immediately  before  the  opening  of 
the  session  under  these  changed  auspices,  Cobden  attended  for  the 
fourth  time  the  Peace  Conference,  which  was  on  this  occasion  hdd 
at  Manchester.  He  still  nursed  the  honorable  belief  that  the 
spread  of  sound  information  and  reasonable  arguments  would 
suflice  to  stem  the  tide  of  national  delusion,  and  he  once  more 
raised  the  old  cry  to  which  Manchester  had  in  old  days  so  briskly 
responded,  for  an  army  ofdecturers  and  a  deluge  of  tracts  to  coun- 
teract "  the  poison  that  was  being  infused  into  the  minds  of  the 
people."  He  met  a  friend  in  the  streets,  who  said  to  him,  "  You 
have  come  here  at  a  very  inopportune  time  for  your  Peace  meet- 
ing, for  everybody  is  in  a  panic,  and  thinks  that  you  are  wrong." 
Cobden  manfully  replied,  that  this  was  the  very  reason  why  they 
were  there,  precisely  because  there  never  was  a  time  yet  when  it 
was  so  necessary  for  the  Peace  party  to  redouble  its  efforts. 

While  he  was  at  Manchester,  Cobden  found  satisfaction  in  the 
reception  which  his  pamphlet  had  at  the  hands  both  of  his  friends 
and  of  the  public  at  large.  If  it  did  not  work  a  great  national 
conversion,  at  any  rate  it  did  not  fall  dead.     Opinion  decided 

1  "A  famine  fell  upon  nearly  one  half  of  a  great  nation.  The  whole  world 
hastened  to  contribute  money  and  food.  But  a  few  courageous  men  left  their  homes 
in  Middlesex  and  Surrey,  and  penetrated  to  the  remotest  glens  and  hogs  of  the 
west  coast  of  the  stricken  island,  to  administer  relief  with  their  own  hands.  To 
say  that  they  found  themselves  in  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  would  be  but 
an  imperfect  image  ;  they  were  in  the  charnel-house  of  a  nation.  Never  since  the 
fourteenth  century  did  pestilen(;e,  the  gaunt  handmaid  of  famine,  glean  so  rich  a 
harvest.  In  the  midst  of  a  scene,  which  no  held  of  battle  ever  equalled  in  danger, 
in  the  number  of  its  slain  or  the  sufferings  of  the  surviving,  these  brave  men  moved 
as  calm  and  undismayed  as  though  they  had  been  in  their  own  homes.  The  popu- 
lation sank  so  fast  that  the  living  could  not  bury  the  dead  ;  half-interred  bodies 
protruded  from  the  gaping  graves  ;  often  the  wife  died  in  the  midst  of  her  starving 
children,  whilst  the  husband  lay  a  festering  corpse  by  her  side.  Into  the  midst  of 
these  horrors  did  our  heroes  penetrate,  dragging  the  dead  from  the  living  with  their 
own  hands,  raising  the  head  of  famishing  infancy,  and  pouring  nourishment  into 
]>arched  lips,  from  which  shot  fever-flames  more  deadly  tlian  a  volley  of  musketry. 
Here  was  courage.  No  music  strung  the  nerves  ;  no  smoke  obscured  the  imminent 
danger ;  no  thunder  of  artillery  deadened  the  senses.  It  was  cool  self-])ossession 
and  resolute  will ;  calculating  risk  and  heroic  resignation.  And  who  were  these 
brave  men '(  To  what  gallant  corps  did  they  belong?  Were  they  of  the  horse,  foot, 
or  artillery  force  ?  They  were  Quakers  from  Clapham  and  Kingston  !  If  you 
would  know  what  heroic  actions  they  performed,  you  must  inquire  from  those  who 
witnessed  them.  You  will  not  find  them  recorded  in  the  volume  of  reports  pub- 
lished by  themselves — for  Quakers  write  no  bulletins  of  their  victories. "  —  Cobden's 
Collected  Writmgs,  i.  494,  495. 


^T.49.]  THE   PANIC   OF   1853.  405 

against  him  for  the  hour,  but  that  the  question  should  have  been 
regarded  as  an  open  one,  was  the  first  preliminary  condition  of 
the  world  coming  round  to  his  view. 

'^Manchester,  Jan.  27,  1853.  {To  Mrs.  Cohden) — I  am  writing 
this  in  the  Corn  Exchange.  This  morning's  meeting  is  only  mod- 
erately attended,  but  I  suppose  we  shall  be  better  supported  in 
the  evening.  Bright  has  been  speaking  very  well.  Brotherton  is 
now  speaking  a  very  good  sermon.  By  the  way,  Bright  came  up 
to  me  to-day  when  we  met,  and  exclaimed,  'What  a  glorious 
pamphlet  you  have  written ! '  Henry  Richard,  of  the  Peace 
Society,  tells  me  that  he  sat  up  till  two  o'clock  this  morning  read- 
ing it,  and  is  delighted.  Ireland,  of  the  Examiner  paper,  tells  me 
he  sat  up  to  read  it,  and  gives  also  a  good  account  of  it.  Bright 
says  it  must  be  printed  for  twopence,  and  got  into  every  house  in 
the  kingdom.  I  see  the  Standa.rd  paper  has  commenced  abusing 
it,  and  is  contending  that  the  war  was  begun  by  the  French,  and 
not  ourselves.  But  the  Whigs  will  be  obliged  to  stand  up  for  Fox 
and  their  party,  and  show  the  contrary." 

"Manchester,  Jan.  31,  1853.  (  „  ) — I  can't  tell  what  the 
Times  means  by  reprinting  all  my  pamphlet.  Hitherto  I  don't  V 
see  that  their  own  comments  have  shaken  it  much,  and  I  suppose 
therefore  they  are  rather  inclined  to  let  it  tell  its  own  tale  in  a 
favorable  way.  But  perhaps  the  abuse  is  all  to  come.  However, 
it  is  an  abundant  recompense  for  the  little  night-work,  and  the 
occasional  cold  feet  it  cost  me,  to  see  it  sent  to  all  the  corners  of 
the  earth  upon  the  Times'  broad  sheet.  They  may  abuse  it  as 
they  will,  but  after  letting  it  be  fairly  read,  I  have  no  right  to 
complain.  If,  as  Doctor  Johnson  says,  the  best  compliment  to  an 
author  is  to  quote  him,  I  must  surely  be  satisfied  when  the  whole 
of  my  pamphlet  is  quoted.  I  don't  know  what  the  effect  of  the 
Times  reprinting  it  will  be  upon  Ridgway's  sale,  but  it  will  per- 
haps not  be  unfavorable.  I  have  a  long  letter  from  Parkes,  in 
which  he  is  complimentary  upon  the  pamphlet.  The  Liberal 
press  is  so  taken  aback  by  this  slap  in  their  face  in  the  very  midst 
of  their  anti-French  howl,  that  they  hardly  know  what  to  say  to 
it.  There  is  so  much  that  they  are  bound  to  accept  and  support, 
that  they  hardly  know  how  to  oppose,  and  yet  they  don't  feel  dis- 
posed to  approve  if  they  can  help  it." 

The  great  event  of  the  session  was  the  first  of  those  powerfully 
conceived  and  magnificently  expounded  financial  schemes  by  1/ 
which  the  new  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  astonished  and  de- 
lighted the  country.  The  little  handful  of  Protectionists  declared 
that  it  was  a  Budget  for  Manchester,  and  asked  for  how  many 
years  more  Manchester  was  to  dictate  laws  for  the  nation.  The 
country  gentlemen  did  not  even  yet  realize  that  the  centre  of  ^/' 
political  power  was  slowly  passing  away,  not  for  a  moment  only 


406  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1853. 

but  forever,  from  the  hereditary  and  territorial,  to  the  commercial 

n/  aud  industrial  interests.  They  were  not  wrong  in  perceiving  that 
this  was  the  track  along  which  Mr.  Gladstone  was  now  following 
Sir  Robert  Peel.  In  criticising  this  great  Budget,  Cobden  naturally 
pressed  his  constant  point  of  the  importance  of  reduced  expendi- 
ture as  the  true  key  to  financial  readjustment ;  and  he  pointed 
out  that  extravagance  in  this  direction  would  assuredly  fall  upon 
property  rather  than  commerce,  as  successive  remissions  of  indirect 
taxation  were  inevitable.  But  he  was  particularly  pleased  with 
the  imposition  of  the  legacy  duty  upon  real  property,  and  de- 
scribed Mr.  Gladstone's  Budget  as  bold  and  honest.^  On  another 
/  subject  he  found  himself  in  direct  opposition  to  the  Government. 
Mr.  Milner  Gibson  brought  forward  his  resolutions  upon  the 
various  duties  that  stood  in  the  way  of  a  cheap  press.  He  was 
supported  in  this  attempt  against  the  taxes  on  knowledge  by 
Mr.  Disraeli  and  his  friends,  and  in  the  end  he  defeated  Mr.  Glad- 
stone on  the  advertisement  duty.  The  battle  was  not  won  for 
three  years  to  come  ;  and  after  the  victory  was  achieved,  the  cheap 

^'  newspapers  which  it  allowed  to  come  into  existence  hardly  fulfilled 
all  at  once  the  political  hopes  v/hich  Cobden  and  the  Manchester 
school  expected.  But  that  fact  made  no  difference  in  their  con- 
viction that  good  must  ultimately  come  from  the  abundant  diffu- 
sion of  information,  and  the  constant  threshing  and  sifting  of 
opinion  by  daily  discussion. 

One  incident  at  this  time  was  like  a  ray  of  hope  to  Cobden. 

N^  A  large  number  of  bankers  and  traders  in  the  City  of  London 
went  on  a  deputation  to  the  Emperor  of  the  French,  practically 
to  repudiate  the  language  of  the  panic-mongers,  and  to  express 

^  their  desire  for  the  continuance  of  relations  of  cordiality  and  good- 
will between  the  two  countries.  Unfortunately,  a  train  was  now 
being  laid  in  Eastern  Europe  which,  before  many  months,  had 
put  an  end  to  the  panic  of  a  French  invasion,  but  brought  some- 
thing more  mischievous  than  the  panic  in  its  stead.  Cobden  at 
this  instant  no  more  foresaw  the  war  which  was  as  yet  only  a 

^  cloud  as  of  a  man's  hand  on  the  horizon,  than  it  was  foreseen  by 
the  responsible  statesmen  in  office.  He  passed  the  summer  peace- 
ably in  Sussex,  where  he  was  superintending  the  building  of  his 
new  house  at  Dunford.  His  wife  and  family  were  at  Bognor,  and 
he  passed  his  time  between  the  two  houses.  Mrs.  Cobden  used 
to  bring  him  in  a  carriage  as  far  as  the  Duke  of  Richmond's  Park, 
and  then  he  trudged  across  Goodwood  Downs  and  over  the  unen- 
closed country  to  Heyshott.  His  thoughts  meanwhile  incessantly 
revolved  round  the  concerns  of  public  policy.  He  compiled  a 
lucid  and  forcible  exposure  of  the  origin  of  the  Burmese  War,  in 

1  April  28. 


iET.49.]  THE   PANIC   OF  1853.  .  407 

whicli,  besides  laying  bare  its  naked  arrogance,  injustice,  and  folly, 
he  predicted  the  mischief  that  such  exploits  must  inevitably  one 
day  inflict  on  Indian  finance.  An  expedition  to  a  Peace  Confer- 
ence at  Edinburgh,  and  a  visit  to  Oxford,  were  the  only  two  breaks 
in  his  solitude. 

"  Bognor,  Sept.  19,  1853.  {To  Mr.  McLaren)  — You  are  going 
to  do  a  very  good  but  courageous  act  in  giving  your  countenance 
to  the  Peace  Conference.  Nowhere  has  the  movement  fewer 
partisans  than  in  Scotland,  and  the  reason  is  obvious  —  first  be- 
cause your  heads  are  more  combative  than  even  the  English, 
which  is  almost  a  phrenological  miracle  ;  and  secondly,  the  system 
of  our  military  rule  in  India  has  been  widely  profitable  to  the 
middle  and  upper  classes  in  Scotland,  who  have  had  more  than 
their  numerical  proportion  of  its  patronage.  Therefore  the  military 
party  is  very  strong  in  your  part  of  the  kingdom.  In  this  Peace 
Conference  movement,  we  have  not  the  same  clear  and  definable 
principle  on  which  to  take  our  stand,  that  we  had  in  our  League 
agitation.  There  are  in  our  ranks  those  who  oppose  all  war,  even 
in  self-defence ;  tliose  who  do  not  go  quite  so  far,  and  yet  oppose 
war  on  religious  grounds  in  all  cases  but  in  self-defence ;  and 
there  are  those  who  from  politico-economical  and  financial  con- 
siderations are  not  only  the  advocates  of  peace,  but  also  of  a 
diminution  of  our  costly  peace  establishments.  Amongst  the 
latter  class  I  confess  I  rank  myself.  ....  We  cannot  disguise 
from  ourselves  that  the  military  spirit  pervades  the  higher  and 
more  influential  classes  of  this  country  ;  and  that  the  Court  aris- 
tocracy, and  all  that  is  aping  the  tone  of  the  latter,  believe  that 
their  interests,  privileges,  and  even  their  very  security  are  bound 
up  in  the  maintenance  of  the  '  Horse  Guards.'  Hence  the  very 
unfashionable  character  of  our  movement,  and  hence  the  difficulty 

of  inducing  influential  persons  to  attend  our  meetings If 

we  add  to  all  this  that  the  character  of  the  English  people  is 
arrogant,  dictatorial,  and  encroaching  towards  foreigners ;  that  we 
are  always  disposed  to  believe  that  other  nations  are  preparing  to 
attack  England ;  it  must  be  apparent  that  in  seeking  to  diminish 
our  warlike  establishments,  we  have  to  encounter  as  tough  an 
opposition  as  we  had  in  our  attack  on  the  corn  monopoly,  whilst 
we  look  in  vain  for  that  powerful  nucleus  of  support  which  gave 
us  hopes  in  the  latter  struggle  of  an  eventual  triumph.  The 
tactics  of  the  enemy  have  been  hitherto  cunning  enough.  The  soul 
of  the  peace  movement  is  the  Quaker  sentiment  against  all  war. 
Without  the  stubborn  zeal  of  the  Friends,  there  would  be  no 
Peace  Society  and  no  Peace  Conference.  But  the  enemy  takes 
good  care  to  turn  us  all  into  Quakers,  because  the  Non-Resistance 
principle  puts  us  out  of  court  as  practical  politicians  of  the  present 
day.     Our  opponents  insist  on  it  that  we  wish  to  totally  disarm, 


408  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1853. 

and  leave  ourselves  at  the  mercy  of  Louis  Napoleon  and  the 
French;  nay,  they  say  we  actually  invite  them  to  come  and 
invade  us." 

"  Nov.  9.  {To  Mr.  Bright.)  —  I  can  give  you  no  information  or 
suggestion  about  Eeform.  It  seems  as  if  the  Turkish  question 
this  year,  like  the  French  Invasion  of  the  last,  will  serve  to  divert 

^  /the  public  mind  from  home  questions.  And  this,  in  my  view,  is 
one  of  the  great  evils  of  our  system  of  foreign  intervention.  But 
I  must  say  we  cannot  charge  it  upon  the  aristocracy,  or  the  execu- 
tive, as  a  bait  thrown  to  the  whale.  The  so-called  radicals  of  the 
old  school  are  more  to  blame.  And  this  brings  me  to  remark 
that  in  calling  for  Eeform  of  Parliament,  the  Eadical  party  (so 
called)  have  no  policy  to  offer  as  the  promised  fruits  of  another 
Eeform  Bill.  When  the  Whigs  headed  the  former  cry  in  1830, 
they  promised  retrenchment,  peace,  non-intervention,  and  all  kinds 
of  practical  benefits.  They  have,  no  doubt,  proved  themselves  to 
have  been  to  a  large  extent  impostors,  but  now  the  Eadicals  (I 
speak  of  those  who  are  anything  better  than  Whigs,  and  yet  not 
of  the  Manchester  School)  have  contrived  to  identify  themselves 
with  an  absurd  policy,  which  actually  precludes  the  possibility  of 
any  appreciable  reduction  of  expenditure,  and  puts  them  out  of 
court  as  complainants  against  the  aristocracy  for  their  former 
system  of  foreign  intervention,  and  the  debls  and  misgovernment 
which  have  grown  out  of  it.  In  fact,  those  Eadicals  who  abuse 
us  for  resisting  the  invasion  humbug  and  the  Eastern  question 
humbug,  do  not  seem  to  perceive  how  they  have  been  w^hite washing 
all  the  doings  of  our  aristocracy  from  1688  to  the  present  time; 
and  not  only  so,  but  like  the  red-republican  writers  and  orators 
on  the  Continent,  they  have  contrived  to  give  quiet  people  of 
property  the  notion  that  extreme  liberalism  means  more  wars, 
increased  armaments,  and  greater  burdens  of  taxation.  Add  to 
this,  that  Mr.  Baines  and  a  large  party  of  Dissenters,  the  very 
salt  of  liberalism,  have  .managed  to  snatch  away  from  us  more 
than  half  of  our  old  cry  of  '  National  Education,'  and  you  see  what 
a  mess  we  are  in  for  want  of  a  Eadical  policy  to  inspire  the  great 
supine  public  with  some  hopes  of  advantage  from  a  further  reform 
of  Parliament. 

"  Nov.  22.  (  „  )  —  Yesterday  I  got  a  few  lines  from  Moles- 
w^orth,  asking  me  what  I  thought  ought  to  be  done  in  the  new 
'  Eeform  Bill.  I  have  replied  that  the  Ballot  must  be  had;  but 
that  he  cannot  carry  it  in  the  Cabinet  at  present ;  that  the  sup- 
pression of  the  little  boroughs  is  a  sine  qua  non  of  any  approxi- 
mation to  any  fair  system  of  representation ;  but  that  whatever 

^^  Lord  John  may  consent  to  do,  I  trust  he  will  never  agree  to  the 
principle  of  finality  on  the  Franchise  question,  by  which  more 
,than  five  millions  of  adult  males  are  to  be  stigmatized  as  un- 


^T.  49.]  THE  PANIC  OF  1853.  409 

worthy  of  any  share  in  the  government  of  the  country.  Is  this  a 
time  for  such  a  retrograde  policy,  when  America  and  the  Colonies 
are  beckoning  away  our  population  to  a  higher  economical  and' 
political  fate  ?  It  is  true  the  masses  in  this  country  are  badly  led 
and  poorly  informed,  and  I  fear  possess  less  power  to  influence 
the  Legislature  than  at  any  previous  time;  and  probably  they 
have  not  even  the  same  interest  as  of  old  in  the  theory  of  a  rep- 
resentative system.  But  if  this  all  be  true,  so  much  the  worse 
for  us  all,  for  the  lot  of  the  millions  will  be  the  fate  of  the 
country.  Without  the  cordial  sympathy  and  co-operation  of  the 
masses,  our  electoral  system  will  become  as  soulless  a  thing  as 
that  which  lately  existed  in  France." 

"London,  Dec.  14,  1853.  {To  F.  W.  Cohden.)  —  !  got  back 
here  yesterday  from  Oxford,  where  I  spent  a  most  agreeable  time. 
Instead  of  a  monastery,  the  University  is  rather  a  great  nest  of 
clubs,  where  everybody  knows  everybody,  and  all  are  anxious  to 
have  a  stranger  of  any  note  to  break  the  monotony  of  their  lives. 
I  might  have  lived  at  free  quarters  for  weeks  amougst  them. 
The  best  of  fare,  plenty  of  old  port  and  sherry,  and  huge  fires, 
seem  the  chief  characteristics  of  all  the  colleges.  No  bad  recom- 
mendation you  will  say  in  December.  As  for  the  education  it 
is,  according  to  Dr.  Heldenmaier,  '  the  largest  investment  for  the 
smallest  return  of  all  the  academies  of  the  world ! '  But  after 
seeing  some  of  the  examinations  I  am  inclined  to  think  there 
is  a  greater  effort  required  to  face  the  ordeal  than  we  generally 
suppose." 

By  the  end  of  the  year  an  extraordinary  change  had  at  last  y 
taken  place  in  the  political  sky,  which  Cobden  described  in  his  ^ 
characteristic  style  years  afterwards.  "Let  us  suppose  an  in- 
valid," he  said,^  "to  have  been  ordered,  for  the  benefit  of  his 
health,  to  make  the  voyage  to  Australia  and  back.  He  l.eft  Eng- 
land in  the  month  of  February  or  March.  The  militia  was  pre- 
paring for  duty ;  the  coasts  and  dockyards  were  being  fortified ; 
the  navy,  array,  and  artillery  were  all  in  course  of  augmentation ; 
inspectors  of  artillery  and  cavalry  were  Teported  to  be  busy  on 
the  southern  coast ;  deputations  from  railway  companies,  it  was 
said,  had  been  waiting  on  the  Admiralty  and  Ordnance,  to  ex- 
plain how  rapidly  the  commissariat  and  military  stores  could  be 
transported  from  the  Tower  to  Dover  or  Portsmouth;  and  the 
latest  paragraph  of  news  from  the  Continent  was  that  our  neigh- 
bors on  the  other  side  of  the  Channel  were  pmctising  the  em- 
barkation and  disembarkation  of  troops  by  night.  He  left  home 
amidst  all  these  alarms  and  preparations  for  a  French  invasion. 
After  an  absence  of  four  or  five  months,  during  which  time  he 

1  In  The    Three  Panics:    An  Historical  Episode  (1862):    Collected  Writings, 
ii.  269. 


410  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1854. 

had  no  opportunity  of  hearing  more  recent  news  from  Europe, 
he  steps  on  shore  at  Liverpool,  and  the  first  newspaper  he  sees 
informs  him  that  the  English  and  French  fleets  are  lying  side  hy 
side  in  Besika  Bay.  An  impending  naval  engagement  between 
the  two  Powers  is  naturally  the  idea  that  first  occurs  to  him ;  but 
glancing  at  the  leading  article  of  the  journal,  he  learns  that  Eng- 
land and  France  have  entered  into  an  alliance,  and  that  they  are 
on  the  eve  of  commencing  a  sanguinary  war  against  Kussia." 


CHAPTEE  XXIV. 

THE   CRIMEAN  WAR. 

At  the  end  of  May,  1853,  Cobden  had  described  to  his  brother 
that  there  was  a  good  deal  of  uneasiness  at  headquarters  about 
yTurkish  affairs.  "The  Cabinet,"  he  said,  "has  been  divided  almost 
^to  a  split  upon  the  question  of  more  or  less  direct  interference  on 
our  part.  The  Peelites  and  Molesworth  are  the  least  disposed  for 
intervention.  The  Whigs  and  Palmerston  are  for  the  old  stereo- 
typed phrases  of  Integrity  of  the  Turkish  Empire,  Balance  of 
Power,  etc.  They  are  words  without  meaning,  the  mere  echoes 
of  the  past,  and  so  are  admirably  suited  for  the  mouths  of  senile 
Whiggery."  By  the  end  of  the  year,  owing  to  a  series  of  causes 
which  are  now  well  understood,  the  relations  of  Eussia  to  the 
two  Western  Powers  had  been  allowed  to  fall  into  an  extremely 
dangerous  position.  Cobden's  account  of  the  state  of  the  Govern- 
^  rnent  was  unfortunately  correct.  The  Cabinet  was  divided,  and 
that  came  to  pass  which  always  happens  in  such  circumstances. 
The  section  which  had  the  strongest  and  most  definite  convictions 
won  the  day.  This  was  the  section  practically 'headed  by  Lord 
Palmerston,  and  supported  by  the  great  influence  of  Lord  John 
Eussell.  Instead  of  trying  to  know  the  facts  of  the  condition  of 
Turkey,  these  two  Ministers  rested  upon  the  old  phrases  which 
Cobden  so  truly  described.  Nor  had  either  of  them,  again,  a 
.well-conceived  notion,  as  Sir  Eobert  Peel  had,  of  the  function  of 
^diplomacy  in  preventing  strife.  Diplomacy  in  their  hands  always 
meant  either  veiled  menace  or  tart  lecturing,  instead  of  being  the 
great,  the  difficult,  the  beneficent  art,  which  it  has  been  in  the 
hands  of  its  worthiest  masters,  of  so  reconciling  interests,  sooth- 
ing jealous  susceptibilities,  allaying  apprehensions,  organizing 
influences,  inventing  solutions,  that  the  world  may  move  with 
something  like  steadiness  along  the  grooves  of  deep  pacific  policy, 


JEt.  50.]  THE   CRIMEAN   WAR.  411 

instead  of  tossing  on  a  viewless  sea  of  violence  and  passion. 
If  this  ideal  had  prevailed,  nobody  would  have  sanctioned  the 
despatch  of  a  British  Minister  to  Constantinople  who  was  the        / 
bitter  personal  enemy  of  the  Czar.     The  Peelites,  on  the  other  ^ 
hand,  had  strong  general  leanings  towards  non-intervention,  but 
not  sufficiently  definite  to  give  them  energy  and  determination  in 
working  out  a  policy  that  should  avert  war.     Then  the  tide  of  ^ 
popular  passion  rose  with  extraordinary  rapidity.     The  tardiness 
of  the  diplomatists  gave  time  for  all  that  deep  anger  with  which 
the  people  of  England  had  watched  the  Czar's  proceedings  in 
Hungary  five  years  before,  to  burst  forth  with  a  vehemence  that 
soon  became  uncontrollable.     The  statesmen  who  ought  to  have 
exercised  a  counteracting  control  over  it,  were  hurried  off  their 
feet.     Lord  John  Eussell  and  Lord  Palmerston  were  rivals  for 
popularity,  and  neither  could  endure  to  surrender  the  prize  to   t^ 
the  other  by  making  a  stand  against  the  public  frenzy.      The 
consequence  was  that  England  became  tlie  cat's-paw  of  Austria, 
Prussia,  and  the  Emperor  of  the  French.^ 

War  was  declared  in  the  spring  of  1854.     Before  the  summer  \/ 
of  1855  an  extraordinary  series  of  changes   took   place.      The 
Coalition  Government  had  fallen  to  pieces,  Lord  Palmerston  had 
become  Prime  Minister,  the  Peelites  had  resigned,  Lord  John 
Eussell  had  resigned  and  returned  and  resigned  again.     These 
confused  and  distracting  retreats,  one  after  another,  of  the  states- 
men who  had  so  diligently  fanned  the  flame  of  warlike  passion,  \/ 
filled  the  country  with  a  perplexed  exasperation.     It  would  in- 
deed be  difficult  for  the  historian  to  find  in  our  annals  a  more 
remarkable  exhibition  of  political  heedlessness,  administrative  in- 
competency, and  personal  incoherence  than  marked  the  fifteen 
months  between  the  declaration  of  war,  and  the  second  retire-    ^ 
ment  of  Lord  John  Eussell.    Never  was  confidence  in  public  men  "^ 
more  profoundly  and  universally  shakeu/i     It  was  now  that  Cob-  / 
den  made  a  declaration  of  a  kind  seldom  heard  from  yjoliticians : 
"  1  look  back,"  he  said,  "  with  reoret  on  the  vote  which  chaiifjed 
Lord  Derby's  Government ;  I  regret  the  result  of  that  motion,  for    sT 
it  has  cost  the  country  a  hundred  millions  of  treasure,  and  be- 
tween thirty  and  forty  thousand  good  lives." 

It  is  not  difficult  to  believe  that  at  the  time  of  the  Vienna  Con-  y 
ference  (1855)  Lord  Palmerston  felt  that  the  continuance  of  the  ^ 
war  was  required  by  domestic  emergencies.  Strong  language  was 
heard  at  public  meetings  about  the  aristocracy.  The  newspapers 
talked  very  freely  about  Prince  Albert.  The  cry  for  inquiry  was 
so  passionate  that  Lord  Palmerston  was  obliged  to  assent  to  the 
Sebastopol  Committee  two  or  three  days  after  he  had  expressly 

1  We  must  remember  that  even  the  modern  Road-to-India  argument  for  the 
defence  of  Turkey  had  not  then  been  invented. 


412  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1854. 

refused  his  assent.  If  peace  had  been  made  at  Vienna,  the  nation 
would  have  discovered  the  spurious  pleas  on  which  the  war  had 
been  begun.  Its  temper  was  dangerous,  and  Lord  Palmerston 
may  well  have  seen  the  risks  to  much  that  he  valued,  if  that 
temper  were  balked. 

When  we  look  back  upon  the  affairs  of  that  time,  we  see  that 

^  there  were  two  policies  open.  Lord  Palmerston's  was  one,  the 
Manchester  policy  was  the  other.  If  we  are  to  compare  Lord 
Palmerston's  statesmanship  and  insight  in  the  Eastern  Question 
with  that  of  his  two  great  adversaries,  it  is  hard,  in  the  light  of 
all  that  has  happened  since,  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  Cobden 

/  and  Mr.  Bright  were  right,  and  Lord  Palmerston  was  disastrously 
V  wrong.  It  is  easy  to  plead  extenuating  circumstances  for  the 
egregious  mistakes  in  Lord  Palmerston's  policy  about  the  Eastern 
Question,  the  Suez  Canal,  and  some  other  important  subjects  ;  but 
the  plea  can  only  be  allowed  after  it  has  been  frankly  recognized 
that  they  really  were  mistakes,  and  that  the  abused  Manchester 
School  exposed  and  avoided  them.     Lord  Palmerston,  for  instance, 

[  asked  why  the  Czar  could  not  be  "  satisfied,  as  we  all  are,  with 
the  progressively  liberal  system  of  Turkey."  ^  Cobden,  in  his 
pamphlet  twenty  years  before,  insisted  that  this  progressively  lib- 
eral system  of  Turkey  had  no  existence.'"^  Which  of  these  two 
propositions  was  true,  may  be  left  to  the  decision  of  those  who 
lent  to  the  Turk  many  millions  of  money  on  the  strength  of  Lord 
Palmerston's  ignorant  and  delusive  assurances.  It  was  mainly 
owing  to  Lord  Palmerston,  again,  that  the  efforts  of  the  war  were 

^/  concentrated  at  Sebastopol.  Sixty  thousand  English  and  French 
troops,  he  said,  with  the  co-operation  of  the  fleets,  would  take 
Sebastopol  in  six  weeks.  Cobden  gave  reasons  for  thinking  very 
differently,  and  urged  that  the  destruction  of  Sebastopol,  even 
when  it  was  achieved,  would  neither  inflict  a  crushing  blow  on 
Russia,  nor  prevent  future  attacks  upon  Turkey.  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's error  may  have  been  intelligible  and  venial ;  nevertheless, 
as  a  fact,  he  was  in  error  and  Cobden  was  not,  and  the  error  cost 

V  the  nation  one  of  the  most  unfortunate,  mortifying,  and  absolutely 
useless  campaigns  in  English  history.^     Cobden  held  that  if  we 

-)  were  to  defend  Turkey  against  Eussia,  the  true  policy  was  to  use 
our  navy,  and  not  to  send  a  land  force  to  the  Crimea.  Would 
any  serious  politician  now  be  found  to  deny  it  ?  We  might  pro- 
long the  list  of  propositions,  general  and  particular,  which  Lord 
Palmerston  maintained  and  Cobden  traversed,  from  the  beginning 

;     1  See  Mr.  Ashley's  Life,  ii.  280,  281.  2  gee  above,  Chapter  IV. 

'  The  Sebastopol  Inquiry  Committee  reported  that  the  administration  which 
ordered  the  expedition  had  no  adequate  information  as  to  the  forces  in  the  Crimea; 
that  they  were  ignorant  of  the  strength  of  the  fortresses  to  be  attacked,  and  the 
resources  of  the  territory  to  be  invaded. 


iET.  50.]  THE   CRIMEAN  WAR.  413 

to  the  end  of  the  Russian  War.  There  is  not  one  of  these  propo- 
sitions in  which  later  events  have  not  shown  that  Cobden's  knowl- 
edge was  greater,  his  judgment  cooler,  his  insight  more  penetrating 
and  comprehensive.  The  bankruptcy  of  the  Turkish  Govern- 
ment, the  further  dismemberment  of  its  empire  by  the  Treaty  of 
Berlin,  the  abrogation  of  the  Black  Sea  Treaty,  have  already  done 
something  to  convince  people  that  the  two  chiefs  of  the  Manches- 
ter School  saw  much  further  ahead  in  1854  and  1855  than  men 
who  had  passed  all  their  lives  in  foreign  chanceries  and  the  pur- 
lieus of  Downing  Street. 

It  is  startling  to  look  back  upon  the  bullying  contempt  which 
the  man  who  was  blind  permitted  himself  to  show  to  the  men 
who  could  see.  The  truth  is,'  that  to  Lord  Palmerston  it  .was  still 
incomprehensible  and  intolerable  that  a  couple  of  manufacturers 
from  Lancashire  should  presume  to  teach  him  foreign  policy. 
Still  more  offensive  to  him  was  their  introduction  of  morality  into 
the  mysteries  of  the  Foreign  Office.  Before  the  opening  of  the  ses- 
sion of  1854,  he  presided  at  a  banquet  given  at  the  Reform  Club  to 
Sir  Charles  Napier  on  his  departure  to  take  command  of  the  fleet 
in  the  Baltic.  In  proposing  success  to  the  guest  of  the  evening, 
he  made  a  speech  in  that  vein  of  forced  jocularity  with  which 
elderly  gentlemen  give  the  toast  of  the  bride  and  bridegroom  at  a 
wedding  breakfast  When  Parliament  assembled,  Mr.  Bright  re- 
monstrated ^  against  the  levity  of  these  jokes  and  stories  on  the 
lips  of  a  responsible  statesman  at  so  grave  and  ominous  a  moment. 
The  war,  he  said,  might  be  justifiable  or  not,  but  it  must  in  any 
case  be  an  awful  thing  to  any  nation  that  engaged  in  it.  Lord 
Palmerston  began  his  reply  by  referring  to  Mr.  Bright  as  "  the 
honorable  and  reverend  gentleman."  Cobden  rose  to  call  him  to 
order  for  this  flippant  and  unbecoming  phrase.  Lord  Palmerston 
said  he  would  not  quarrel  about  words.  Then  he  went  on  to  say 
that  he  thought  it  right  to  tell  Mr.  Bright  that  his  opinion  was  a 
matter  of  entire  indifference,  and  that  he  treated  his  censure  with 
the  most  perfect  indifference  and  contempt.  On  another  occasion 
he  showed  the  same  unmannerliness  to  Cobden  himself  Cobden 
had  said  that  under  certain  circumstances  he  would  fight,  or,  if  he 
could  not  fight,  he  would  work  for  the  wounded  in  the  hospitals. 
"  Well,"  said  Lord  Palmerston  in  reply,  with  the  sarcasm  of  a 
schoolboy's  debating  society,  "  there  are  many  people  in  tliis  coun- 
try who  think  that  the  party  to  which  he  belongs  should  go  im- 
mediately into  a  hospital  of  a  different  kind,  and  which  I  shall 
not  mention."  ^     This  refined  irony  was  a  very  gentle  specimen  of 

1  March  13,  1854. 

^  June  4,  1855.  Mr.  Disraeli  on  one  occasion  durinfi;  this  period  complained  of 
the  "patrician  bullying  of  the  treasury  bench,"  and  amid  great  cheering  told  Lord 
Palmerston  that  he  had  used  language  which  was  not  to  be  expected  "from  one 


414  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1854. 


US 


J 


the  insult  and  contumely  which  was  poured  upon  Cobden  and  Mr. 
Bright  at  this  time.  "  The  British  nation,"  said  Lord  Palmerston, 
in  a  private  letter,  "is  unanimous  in  this  matter;  I  say  unani- 
mous, for  I  cannot  reckon  Cobden,  Bright,  and  Co.  for  anything."  ^ 

obody  who  turns  over  a  file  of  newspapers  for  this  period,  or  the 
pages  of  Hansard,  or  the  letters  of  Cobden  and  Mr.  Bright  to  one 
another,  will  deny  that  Lord  Palmerston's  estimate  was  perfectly 
correct. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  regard  the  attitude  of  the  two  objects  of 
this  vast  unpopularity  as  one  of  the  most  truly  admirable  spec- 
tacles in  our  political  history.  The  moral  fortitude,  like  the  po- 
litical wisdom  of  these  two  strong  men,  begins  to  stand  out  with 
a  splendor  that  already  recalls  the  great  historic  types  of  states- 
manship and  patriotism.  Even  now  our  heartfelt  admiration  and 
gratitude  goes  out  to  them  as  it  goes  out  to  Burke  for  his  lofty 
and  manful  protests  against  the  war  with  America  and  the  oppres- 
sion of  Ireland,  and  to  Charles  Fox  for  his  bold  and  strenuous 
resistance  to  the  war  with  the  first  French  Eepublic.  They  had, 
as  Lord  Palmerston  said,  the  whole  world  against  them.  It  was 
not  merely  the  august  personages  of  the  Court,  nor  the  illustrious 
veterans  in  Government  and  diplomacy,  nor  the  most  experienced 
politicians  in  Parliament,  nor  the  powerful  journalists,  nor  the 
men  versed  in  great  affairs  of  business.  It  was  no  light  thing  to 
confront  even  that  solid  mass  of  hostile  judgment.  But  besides 
all  this,  Cobden  and  Mr.  Bright  knew  that  the  country  at  large, 
even  their  trusty  middle  and  industrious  classes,  had  turned  their 
faces  resolutely  and  angrily  away  from  them.  Their  own  great 
instrument,  the  public  meeting,  was  no  longer  theirs  to  wield. 
The  army  of  the  Nonconformists,  which  has  so  seldom  been  found 
fighting  on  the  wrong  side,  was  seriously  divided.  The  Eadicals 
were  misled  by  their  recollection  of  Poland  and  Hungary  into 
thinking  .that  war  against  Russia  must  be  war  for  freedom. 

Men  who  had  come  to  politics  in  the  spirit  of  philosophers  or 
prophets,  might  have  cared  very  little  for  this  terrible  unanimity 
of  common  opinion.  But  Cobden  and  Mr.  Bright  had  never 
affected  to  be  disinterested  spectators  of  the  drama  of  national 
affairs.  They  had  formed  strong  and  definite  convictions,  but 
they  had  formed  them  with  reference  to  the  actual  condition  of 
things,  and  not  in  the  air.  They  were  neither  doctrinaires  nor 
fanatics.  They  had  always  taken  up  the  position  of  reasonable 
actors,  and  talked  the  language  of  practical  politicians.  A  prac- 
tical politician  without  followers  is  as  unfortunate  as  a  general 
who  has  lost  sight  of  his  army.     They  had  habitually  appealed 

who  is  not  only  the  leader  of  the  House  of  Commons  —  which  is  an  accident  of  life 
—  but  who  is  also  a  gentleman."  —  July  16,  1855. 
1  Mr.  Ashley's  Lijfe,  ii.  325. 


iET.  50.]  THE   CRIMEAN   WAR.  415 

against  aristocratic  caste,  against  monopolist  selfishness,  against     . 
journalistic  levity,  against  parliamentary  insincerity,  to  the  sover-  ^ 
eign  tribunal  of  Public  Opinion.     They  had  lived  and  worked  on    , 
opinion,  they  had  placed  their  whole  heart  in  it,  they  had  won 
their  great  victory  by  it.     This  divinity  now  proved  as  false  an  idol 
as  the  rest.    Public  opinion  was  bitterly  and  impatiently  hostile  and 
intractable.     Mr.  Bright  was  burnt  in  effigy.     Cobden,  at  a  meet- 
ing in  his  own  constituency,  after  an  energetic  vindication  of  his 
opinions,  saw  resolutions   carried  against  him.     Every  morning 
they  were  reviled  in  half  the  newspapers  in  the  country  as  ene- 
mies of  the  commonwealth.     They  were  openly  told  that  t\iey\y 
were  traitors,  and  that  it  was  a  pity  that  they  could  not  be  pun- 
ished as  traitors. 

A  more  mortifying  position  can  hardly  be  imagined.     Mortify-  ^ 
ing  as  it  was,  it  never  shook  their  steadfastness  for  a  moment. 
War  could  never  be  for  them  a  mere  commonplace  incident  of  ' 
policy.     If  the  necessity  for  it  was  anything  short  of  being  irre- 
sistible, war  was  a  crime  and  the  parent  of  crimes.     They  now   ' 
asked  where  was  the  necessity,  and  what  was  the  justification. 
Tiie  danger  of  the  Russian  power,  they  said,  was  a  phantom.     The 
expediency  of  permanently  upholding  the  Ottoman  rule  in  Europe  t^ 
was  an  absurdity.     The  drawbacks  of  non-intervention  were  r(j- 
mote  and  vague,  and  could  neither  be  weighed  nor  described  in 
accurate  terms.     This  is  their  own  lanf^uac^e.     With  such  a  view, 
it  was  impossible  that  they  could  do  otherwise  than  hold  sternly 
aloof.     "  You  must  excuse  me,"  said  Mr.  Bright,  in  reply  to  the 
Mayor  of  Manchester,  who  had  invited  him  to  attend  a  meeting 
for  the  Patriotic  Fund,  "  if  I  cannot  go  with  you ;  I  will  have  no 
part  in  this  terrible  crime.     My  hands  shall  be  unstained  with 
the  blood  that  is  being  shed.     The  necessity  of  maintaining  them- 
selves in  office  may  influence  an  Administration ;  delusion  may 
mislead  a  people ;  Vattel  may  afford  you  a  law  and  a  defence ; 
but  no  respect  I  have  for  men  who  form  a  Government,  no  regard 
I  have  for  going  with  the  stream,  and  no  fear  of  being  deemed 
wanting  in   patriotism,  shall  influence  me  in  favor  of  a  policy    ' 
which  in  my  conscience  1  believe  to  be  as  criminal  before  God,  as 
it  is  destructive  of  the  true  interests  of  my  country."  ^ 

With  equal  firmness  and  equity,  when  disasters  came  and  peo-  ^ 
pie  were  beginning  to  talk  at  meetings  against  the  aristocracy  and 
the  Crown,  Cobden  would  not  consent  to  remove  the  blame  of 
disaster  from  the  nation  itself  "  So  far  as  I  am  concerned,"  he 
said,  "I  will  never  truckle  so  low  to  the  popular  spirit  of  the  .y 
moment  as  to  join  in  any  cry  which  shall  divert  the  mass  of  the 
people  from  what  I  believe  should  be  their  first  thought  and  con- 

1  Written  in  October,  1 854.     The  whole  of  this  admirable  letter  is  given  at  the 
end  of  the  first  volume  of  Mr.  Blight's  Speeches. 


416  LIFE   OP  COBDEN.  [1854. 

sideration,  namely,  how  far  they  themselves  are  responsible  for  the 
evils  which  may  fall  upon  the  land,  and  how  far  they  should  be- 
gin at  home  before  they  begin  to  find  fault  with  others."  ^ 

It  has  often  been  asked  how  it  happened  that  these  two  stren- 
uous, eloquent,  logical,  well-informed  men,  with  their  great  popular 
prestige  and  their  consummate  experience  in  framing  arguments 
that  should  tell,  failed  so  absolutely  at  this  crisis  in  making  any 
impression  on  the  minds  of  their  countrymen.  The  historian  of 
the  Crimean  War,  in  a  classic  passage,^  has  said  that  the  answer 
is  very  simple.  They  could  make  no  stand  because  they  had  for- 
feited their  hold  upon  the  ear  of  the  country  by  the  immoderate 
and  indiscriminate  way  in  which  they  had  put  forward  some  of 
the  more  extravagant  doctrines  of  the  Peace  Party.  They  had  no 
weight  as  opponents  of  a  particular  war,  because  they  were  known 
to  be  against  almost  all  war.  In  all  this  there  is  much  that  is 
true  and  excellently  stated.  We "  may  certainly  demur  to  the 
assertion  that  Cobden  had  as  a  matter  of  fact  put  forward  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Peace  party  in  immoderate  terms.  A  careful  exam- 
ination of  his  speeches,  both  in  the  House  and  in  the  country 
shows  that  he  had  always  advocated  the  principles  of  non-inter- 
vention, not  on  grounds  of  sentiment,  philanthropy,  or  religion, 
but  strictly  in  the  dialect  of  policy  and  business.  The  country, 
however,  did  not  at  that  time  perceive  this.  People  are  too  much 
occupied,  and  they  are  moreover  specially  disinclined  by  national 
temperament,  to  examine  an  innovating  doctrine  with  minute  and 
literal  precision.  The  virtues  of  Englishmen  lie  very  close  to  their 
vices.  The  same  dogged  tenacity  with  which  they  encounter  ob- 
stacles in  the  great  material  and  political  tasks  which  they  have 
set  themselves  throughout  their  adventurous  history  all  over  the 
world,  binds  them  closely  to  their  prejudices.  The  same  invin- 
cible stubbornness,  as  Haydon  said,  which  beat  the  French  at 
Waterloo,  makes  them  prepare  to  receive  cavalry  at  every  innova- 
tion. They  eye  every  reform  as  they  would  an  enemy's  cuirassier. 
Above  all,  though  full  of  religious  sentiment,  in  every  reference  to 
morality  in  practical  politics  they  instantly  suspect  cant.^  Cob- 
den knew  all  this  as  well  as  anybody.  But  what  he  also  knew 
was  that  the  doctrine  could  only  be  made  to  take  a  hold  on  men 
by  strenuous  and  persistent  advocacy,  even  at  the  risk  of  this 
advocacy  being  misunderstood.  Events  showed  in  the  long  run 
that  his  tactics  were  prudent.  It  was  by  the  strenuousness  and 
persistency  of  himself  and  Mr.  Bright,  that  they  at  last  succeeded 
in  making  that  gross  and  broad  impression  which  it  was  their 
object  to  produce.  They  were  routed  on  the  question  of  the  Cri- 
mean War,  but  it  was  the  rapid  spread  of  their  principles  which 

^  Speeches,  ii.  54.    June  5,  1855.  ^  Memoirs,^  ii.  273,  274. 

2  Mr.  Kinglake's  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,  vol.  ii.  chapter  vii.  pp.  69-71. 


^T.50.]  THE   CRIMEAN   WAR.  417 

within  tlie  next  twenty  years  made  intervention  impossible  in 
the  Franco-Austrian  War,  in  the  American  War,  in  the  Danish 
War,  in  the  Franco-German  War,  and,  above  all,  in  the  war  be- 
tween Eussia  and  Turkey  which  broke  out  only  the  other  day. 

On  the  whole,  however,  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  the  failure  of     y^ 
the  two  Manchester  leaders  to  affect  opinion  at  this  time  was  due  ^ 
to  the  simplest  of  all  possible  causes.     The  public  had  worked 
itself  into  a  mood  in  which  the  most  solid  reasoning,  the  most 
careful  tenderness  of  prejudice,  the  most  unanswerable  expostula- 
tions, were  all  alike  unavailing.     The  incompetency  of  one  part 
of  the  Ministry,  and  the  recklessness  of  the  other  part,  pushed  '" 
us  over  the  edge.     When  that  has  once  happened,  a  peace  party   ^ 
has  no  longer  any  chance.     Cobden  described  this  some  years 
later  in  connection  with  the  civil  war  in  America.     "  It  is  no  use 
to  argue,"  he  said,  "  as  to  what  is  the  origin  of  the  war,  and  no 
use  whatever  to  advise  the  disputants.     From  the  moment  the 
first  shot  is  fired,  or  the  first  blow  is  struck  in  a  dispute,  then  fare- 
well to  all  reason  and  argument ;  you  might  as  well  reason  with  ' 
mad   dogs  as  with  men  when  they  have  begun  to   spill   each 
other's  blood   in  mortal   combat.     I   was   so   convinced   of  the 
fact  during  the  Crimean  War,  I  was  so  convinced  of  the  utter 
uselessness  of  raising  one's  voice  in  opposition  to  war  when  it 
has  once  begun,  that  I  made  up  my  mind  that  so  long  as  I  was  in 
political  life,  should  a  war  again  break  out  between  England  and 
a  great  Power,  I.  would  never  open  my  mouth  upon  the  subject 
from  the  time  the  first  gun  was  fired  until  the  peace  was  made."  ^ 

During  these  two  years  of  disaster  and  mistake,  Cobden  could 
not  do  more  than  raise  protests  from  time  to  time  as  opportunity  ^ 
served.  The  House  of  Commons  was  much  more  tolerant  than 
larger  and  less  responsible  assemblies.  Describing  the  reception 
of  his  speech  against  the  Ministerial  policy  at  the  opening  of  the 
Session  of  1854,  Cobden  wrote  to  his  wife  :  —  "No  enthusiasm, 
of  course ;  —  that  I  did  not  expect ;  but  there  was  a  feeling  of 
interest  throughout  the  House,  which  is  not  bumptious  or  warlike 
to  the  extent  I  expected,  and  not  disposed  to  be  insolent  to  the 
*  peace  party.'  In  fact,  I  find  many  men  in  the  Tory  party  agree- 
ing with  me.  After  I  spoke,  Molesworth  took  me  aside  and  said 
he  and  Gladstone  thought  I  never  spoke  better."  The  failure, 
again,  of  the  negotiations. at  Vienna  in  the  summer  of  1855,  and 
the  consequent  perseverance  in  the  war,  inspired  him  with  one  of 
his  most  forcible  speeches,  and  subsequent  events  have  made  it 
more  completely  unanswerable  now  than  it  was  even  then.  It  is 
still  worthy  of  being  read  by  any  one  who  cares  to  know  how 
strong  a  case  the  Manchester  School  was  able  to  make.^    "  The 

1  Speeches,  ii.  314.     Oct.  29,  1862.  »  Speeches,  ii.     June  5,  1855. 

27 


418  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1855. 

House  was  very  full,"  Cobden  wrote  to  Mrs.  Cobden  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  "  and  sat  and  stood  it  out  most  attentively.  Not  one 
breath  of  disapprobation,  and  a  fair  share  of  support  in  the  way 
of  cheers.  I  was  complimented  by  many  members  after  it  was 
over.  Amongst  others,  Lytton  Bulwer  walked  across  the  House 
to  offer  his  congratulations.  All  this  is  not  fit  to  be  repeated  at 
your  breakfast-table  as  coming  from  me.  Sidney  Herbert  remarked 
.  that  it  carried  him  back  again  to  my  old  Corn  Law  speeches ; 
and  Lord  Elcho  (formerly  Mr.  Charteris)  has  just  this  moment 
come  to  whisper  in  my  ear  that  he  considers  my  speech  better 
than  Gladstone's.  The  roar  of  laughter  against  Molesworth  at 
my  '  black  and  curly '  allusion  disconcerted  him  sadly.  I  met 
Molesworth  in  the  cloak-room  on  leaving  the  House.  We  ex- 
changed a  bantering  word  or  two.  *  How  are  you  ? '  said  he, 
with  a  grim  effort  at  the  facetious.  *  How  are  you  ? '  was  my 
reply.  After  turning  from  me  he  fell  plump  into  Bright's  hands, 
who  was  waiting  for  me,  and  who  rallied  him  unmercifully,  tell- 
ing him  he  had  not  had  half  his  deserts,  and  that  he  had  some- 
thing yet  in  store  for  him  himself  Molesworth  tried  to  be 
audacious,  and  told  Bright,  'You  are  just  as  bad  as  I  am.'  Lord 
John  will  get  sadly  mauled  before  the  end  of  it.  The  part  I 
brought  out  respecting  his  signing  away  the  rights  of  the  Walla- 
chians  and  Moldavians  will  be  flung  in  his  face  again.  Eoebuck 
says  he  shall  tell  him  that  he  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  show  his 
face  in  the  House  after  affirming  such  a  doctrine." 

After  reading  this  speech,  so  full  of  knowledge  and  compre- 
hensive reasoning  and  of  strong  moderation  as  distinguished 
from  the  same  quality  when  it  is  weak,  we  can  understand 
that,  even  in  the  midst  of  their  anger  against  Cobden  and 
^  Mr.  Bright,  people  began  to  feel  secret  misgivings  that  they 
might  be  right  after  all.  "  There  is  a  growing  mistrust,"  Cobden 
wrote  to  Mrs.  Cobden  about  this  time,  "  of  the  durability  of  Palm- 
erston's  Ministry.  I  have  heard  from  several  quarters  that  if  I 
and  Bright  had  not  been  so  *  wrong '  on  the  war  we  should  cer- 
tainly have  been  forced  into  the  Ministry.  Two  letters  from 
Delane,  the  Editor  of  the  Times,  written  to  friends  of  his,  but  not 
intended  for  my  eye,  have  been  put  into  my  hands,  in  which  this 
sentiment  is  expressed  that  Bright  and  I  nmst  have  been  Minis- 
ters if  we  had  not  shelved  ourselves  by  our  peace  principles." 

Until  the  end  of  1855  the  prospects  of  peace  seemed  very 
remote.  Lord  John  Russell  described  the  state  of  things  with 
characteristic  concision  in  a  letter  to  Cobden.  "The  peace  of 
Amiens,"  he  said  (Nov.  12,  1855),  "  a  very  disadvantageous  peace 

—  gave  universal  joy.     The  peace  of  1763,  a  very  glorious  peace 

—  gave  general  dissatisfaction.     The  people  of  this  country  are 
not  tired  of  war,  and  do  not  much  feel  the  sacrifices  you  speak  of. 


^T.51.]  THE  CRIMEAN  WAR.  419 

When  they  are  tired,  they  will  blame  any  Minister  who  does  not 
make  peace."  The  French  Emperor  was  in  a  similar  predicament. 
Marshal  Vaillant  told  him  that  he  would  not  answer  for  the 
French  army  if  it  were  brought  home  without  laurels.  In  this 
unpromising  situation  Cobden  sat  down  to  write  a  pamphlet, 
which  was  published  at  the  beginning  of  1856,  What  Next  —  and 
Next  ?  ^  Without  going  into  the  question  of  the  origin  of  the 
war,  Cobden  made  it  his  object  "  to  give  some  facts  about  Eussia 
with  a  view  to  prevent  the  self-confidence  into  which  people  fell 
of  humbling  that  Power  on  her  own  soil."  "  I  suppose  people 
won't  read  it,"  he  said,  "  but  my  conscience  will  be  at  rest." 

It  now  remains  to  give  some  of  Cobden's  correspondence  at  this 
time,  principally  from  that  with  Mr.  Bright. 

"Midhurst,  Sept  14,  1854.  (To  Mr.  Bright)— I  am  in  the 
midst  of  the  removal  of  my  books,  and  for  the  last  few  days  have 
been  up  to  my  chin  in  dusty  tomes  and  piles  of  old  pamphlets,  a 
cartload  of  which  I  am  consigning  to  the  hay-loft  for  waste 
paper.  Fortunately  for  me  my  mind  has  therefore  been  little 
occupied  on  public  affairs,  which  I  confess  afford  me  but  little 
food  for  pleasant  reflection. 

"  I  am  as  much  satisfied  as  ever  that  we  have  followed  a  right 
course  on  the  war  question.  It  must  be  right  for  us,  because  we 
have  followed  our  own  conscientious  convictions.  But  in  propor- 
tion as  we  are  devoted  to  our  principles  must  be  our  regret  to  see.  / 
so  little  prospect  of  their  being  adopted  as  the  practical  guide  of 
our  foreign  policy.  It  is  no  use  blinking  the  fact  that  there  are 
not  a  score  of  men  in  the  House,  and  but  few  out  of  the  ranks  of 
the  Friends  in  the  country,  who  are  ready  to  take  their  stand  upon 
the  principle  of  non-intervention  in  the  affairs  of  other  countries. 
This  is  no  reason  why  we  should  hold  our  peace  ;  but  it  shows 
that  we  have  to  begin  at  the  beginning,  by  converting  to  our 
views  that  public  opinion  which  is  at  present  all  but  unanimously 
against  us. 

"  I  sometimes  regret  that  I  omitted  to  call  meetings  in  York- 
shire before  the  war  began.  As  it  is,  we  must  wait  results,  which 
will  be  serious  one  way  or  another  soon,  if  the  expedition  to  Se- 
bastopol  has  been  carried  into  effect.  My  own  opinion  is  that  if 
the  Anglo-French  army  can  make  good  a  landing,  it  will  be  a 
match  in  the  open  field  for  three  times  its  number  of  Eussian 
troops.  But  there  are  all  the  accidents  of  wind  and  weather. 
How  Lord  Aberdeen  must  have  quaked  at  the  sound  of  the  equi- 
noctial gales  which  began  blowing  last  night  a  week  before  they 
were  due.  The  fate  of  the  ministry  quite  as  much  as  that  of  the 
generals  hangs  on  the  result.     If,  owing  to  the  weather  at  sea,  or 

1  Collected  "Writings,  vol.  ii. 


420  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1855. 

the  climate  on  shore,  or  the  dogged  resistance  of  the  Eussians 
behind  their  walls,  the  expedition  should  fail,  there  will  be.  a  cry 
for  a  change  of  government.  The  English  Kadicals  and  Tories 
will  alike  demand  '  victims '  to  appease  their  wrath.  If  it  succeed, 
no  matter  at  what  cost  of  life,  the  ministry  will  be  saved." 

''Micllmrst,  Oct.  1,  1854.  {To  Mr.  Bright)  —  You  ask  when  our 
turn  will  come.  When  common  sense  and  honesty  are  in  the  as- 
cendant, a  day  for  me  not  very  likely  to  be  realized,  as  I  am  fifty, 
and  not  of  a  long-lived  family.  You  have  a  better  .chance,  but 
don't  be  too  sanguine.  It  is  very  singular  but  true  that  if  we  look 
back  to  the  originators  and  propagators  of  this  Eussiaphobia,  they 
have  been  almost  without  exception  half-cracked  people.  I  could 
give  a  list  of  them,  including  Urquhart,  Atwood,  &c.  Unfortu- 
nately we  live  in  an  age  when  in  this  country  at  least  mad  people 
have  still  a  very  great  power  over  other  minds 

"  I  sometimes  feel  quite  puzzled  when  I  ask  myself  what  result 
in  tke  present  struggle  for  Sebastopol  would  be  the  most  likely  to 
promote  the  end  you  and  I  desire  to  see,  a  distaste  for  war  and  a 
wish  on  all  sides  for  peace  ?  Putting  humanity  and  patriotism 
aside  for  the  sake  of  argument,  perhaps  tlie  best  thing  that  could 
happen  would  be  a  long  and  sanguinary  contest  without  decisive 
result,  until  the  German  powers  stepped  in  to  compel  the  ex- 
hausted combatants  to  come  to  terms.  For  whether  the  one  or 
the  other  side  win,  I  foresee  great  evils  to  follow.  Let  John  Bull 
have  a  great  military  triumph,  and  we  shall  all  have  to  take  off 
our  hats  as  we  pass  the  Horse  Guards  for  the  rest  of  our  lives. 
On  the  other  hand,  let  the  Czar's  swollen  pride  be  gratified  and 
inflamed  with  victory,  it  will  foster  that  spirit  of  military  insolence 
which  pervades  everything  in  Eussia.  But  if  neither  could  claim 
a  decisive  triumph,  and  both  were  thoroughly  discouraged  and 
disgusted  with  their  sacrifices,  they  might  all  in  future  be  equally 
disposed  to  be  more  peaceable. 

"  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  foresee  any  other  result  than  this, 
unless  upon  the  assumption  that  the  Eussian  Empire  is  a  more 
thorough  imposture  than  anybody  has  suspected.  And  yet,  if  the 
accounts  be  true,  there  does  not  seem  to  be  a  great  force  to  protect 
Sebastopol,  and  all  their  Black  Sea  ships  and  arsenals,  notwith- 
'standing  that  the  Government  have  had  more  than  two  months' 
notice  from  Lord  John  Eussell  himself  of  our  intention  to  strike  a 
blow  there.  What  an  illustration  it  is  of  the  weakness  which  ac- 
companies the  acquisition  of  territory  by  mere  military  conquests 
on  a  large  scale.  We  know  that  Eussia  has  more  than  600,000 
effective  troops,  and  yet  if  report  be  true  she  cannot  concentrate 
50,000  for  the  defence  of  a  vital  point.     Little  Belgium  could  do 

more 

"But  I  cannot  convince  myself  that  we  are  to  have  an  easy  vie- 


iET.51.]  THE  CRIMEAN   WAR.  421 

tory  in  the  Crimea.  I  was  reading  last  night  the  account  of 
Bonaparte's  Eussian  campaign.  If  the  Eussians  fight  behind 
their  intrenchments  now  as  they  did  at  Borodino  (where  70,000 
were  put  hors-de-combat),  there  will  be  wailing  here  before  another 
month.  I  can't  see  anything  in  the  tactics  of  the  enemy  in  allow- 
ing our  forces  to  land  without  molestation  to  warrant  the  confident 
tone  of  our  cockney  press.  The  Eussians  would  have  been  fools 
to  have  brought  their  men  under  the  fire  of  our  ships'  guns.  By 
the  way,  Napoleon  entered  Moscow  without  opposition  on  the 
14th  Sept.,  1812,  and  we  landed  in  the  Crimea  on  the  14th  Sept., 
1854.  Some  people  may  think  this  an  evil  omen.  We  shall  soon 
be  relieved  from  our  suspense." 

To  Mr.  Bright.  — "  ....  I  have  no  news  beyond  what  the 
papers  give,  which  seems  bad  enough.  The  next  thing  will  be,  I 
suppose,  an  assault  with  the  bayonet,  to  satisfy  the  morbid  impa- 
tience of  the  public  at  home  and  the  soldiery  on  the  spot,  and 
Heaven  only  can  tell  what  the  result  may  be. 

"  I  suspect  from  what  oozes  out  that  the  Government  have  un- 
favorable forebodings.  This  accounts  for  the  fall  on  the  Paris 
Bourse,  where  the  effects  of  bad  news  are  always  felt  first,  owing 
to  the  stock-jobbers  being  more  mixed  up  with  the  personnel  of 
the  Government  than  here.  A  man  who  was  at  the  Lord  Mayor's 
banquet  told  me  the  ministers  were  looking  very  dejected.  That 
they  ought  to  be  unhappy  is  certain  ;  and  yet  when  we  have 
helped  to  turn  them  out,  as  I  should  be  very  glad  to  do,  we  shall 
have  done  little  to  avert  a  repetition  of  the  evils  of  war  until  the 
public  sentiment  can  be  reached,  for  if  a  people  will  be  ruled  by  . 
phrases  such  as  *  balance  of  power,'  *  integrity  and  independence,* 
&c.,  when  uttered  solemnly  by  men  in  power,  you  may  depend  on 
it  they  will  always  find  '  statesmen '  to  take  office  on  such  easy  / 
terms.  I  do  not  know  how  it  is  to  be  done,  but  I  am  quite  sure, 
there  is  no  security  for  anything  better  until  we  can  teach  the 
people  a  lesson  of  moderation  and  modesty  in  foreign  affairs,^ 
and  enlighten  that  almost  Spanish  or  Chinese  ignorance  about 
everything  going  on  abroad  which  characterizes  the  masses  of  our 
countrymen. 

"  I  am  willing  to  incur  any  obloquy  in  telling  the  whole  truth 
to  the  public  as  to  the  share  they  have  had  in  this  war,  and  it  is 
better  to  face  any  neglect  or  hostility  than  allow  them  to  persuade 
themselves  that  anybody  but  themselves  are  responsible  for  the 
war." 

"Midhurst,  Jan.  5,  1855.  (To  Mr.  Bright.)  —  I  agree  with  you 
that  there  is  some  change  in  the  public  mind  upon  the  war ;  but 
the  more  moderate  tone  is  less  to  be  attributed  to  pacific  tenden- 
cies than  to  the  lassitude  which  naturally  follows  a  great  excite- 
ment.    There  is  about  as  much  unsoundness  as  ever  abroad  about 


^ 


422  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1855; 

foreign  affairs.  A  few  exceptions  scattered  over  the  land  have 
come  to  my  knowledge  since  I  spoke  in  the  House.  I  have  heard 
from  a  few  parsons  amongst  others ;  they  are,  I  suppose,  eccen- 
tricities who  have  not  much  weight. 

"  The  break-down  of  our  aristocratic  rulers,  when  their  energies 
are  put  to  the  stress  of  a  great  emergency,  is  about  the  most  con- 
solatory incident  of  the  war.  I  am  not  sure  that  it  will  so  far 
raise  the  middle  class  in  their  own  esteem  as  to  induce  them  to 
venture  on  the  task  of  self-government.  They  must  be  ruled  by 
lords.  Even  the  Times  is  obliged  to  make  the  amende  to  the 
aristocratic  spirit  of  the  age  by  calling  for  that  very  ordinary  but 
self-willed  lord,  the  Governor-General  of  India,  to  come  and  save 
us.^  But  the  discredit  and  the  slaughter  to  which  our  patricians, 
civil  and  military,  have  been  exposed,  will  go  far  to  make  real 
war  unpopular  with  that  influential  class  for  another  generation 
to  come,  whilst  the  swift  retribution  likely  to  fall  on  the  Cabinet 
will  tend  to  make  Governments  less  warlike  in  future.  As  for 
the  people,  they  have  scarcely  felt  the  effects  of  the  war  as  yet, 
but  they  are  rapidly  developing  themselves  in  diminished  trade 
and  increasing  able-bodied  pauperism,  and  augmented  taxation 
will  follow. 

"  The  most  dishonest  or  most '  incapable  and  guilty '  feature  in 
the  conduct  of  the  Government,  to  my  judgment,  has  been  their 
readiness  to  lall  into  the  warlike  humor  of  the  public,  and  con- 
cealing from  them  the  extent  of  the  undertaking.  Even  Glad- 
stone has  lent  himself  to  the  delusion  that  the  people  can  be 
indulged  with  a  chea'p  war.  It  is  impossible  to  believe  that  the 
Ministry  were  so  ignorant  as  to  suppose  that  we  could  fight  Eussia 
on  her  own  territory,  3000  miles  distant  by  sea,  for  10,000,000/. 
But  really  I  believe  Palmerston  or  Lord  John  would  have  under- 
taken to  do  it  by  contract  for  as  many  shillings,  rather  than 
not  have  gained  the  sweet  voice  of  the  multitude  twelve  months 
since. 

"  I  observe  what  you  say  about  the  want  of  more  co-operation 
amongst  our  friends  ....  in  the  House.  What  we  really 
want  is  sympathy  and  support  for  our  views  out  of  doors.  We 
have  a  far  better  hearing  in  Parliament  than  in  the  country,  I 
defy  you,  from  one  extremity  of  the  kingdom  to  the  other,  to  find 
a  mixed  body  of  men  in  which  you  and  I  should  be  so  well  treated 
as  we  were  on  the  last  day  of  the  session.  It  is  the  want  of 
identity  between  the  great  public  and  ourselves  on  important  and 
engrossing  questions  of  principle  that  leaves  us  in  such  an  isolated 
position  in  the  House.  I  am  content  to  be  as  we  are,  with  nothing 
but  an  approving  conscience  for  the  course  we  pursue.      Not  that 

1  Lord  Dalhousie  was  now  Governor-General. 


JEx.  51.]  THE   CRIMEAN  WAR.  423 

I  am,  as  Parkes  says,  without  ambition.  If  I  had  been  where 
Sumner  and  Amasa  Walker  are,  I  should  have  set  no  bounds  to 
my  ambition  ;  but  my  judgment  told  me  twenty  years  ago  that  if 
I  aimed  at  office  in  this  country,  it  must  lead  either  to  disap- 
pointment or  an  abandonment  of  objects  wliich  I  cherish  far 
before  official  rank,  and  therefore  I  preferred  pioneering  for  my 
convictions  to  promotion  at  the  expense  of  them." 

"  January  10, 1855.  {To  Colonel  Fitzmayer.)  —  I  have  again  to 
thank  you  for  your  continued  kindness  in  sending  me  the  reguUir 
news  of  your  siege  operations.  When  I  think  of  all  the  discomfort 
under  which  your  letters  are  penned,  I  cannot  too  highly  value 
such  proofs  of  your  friendship 

"  Before  this  reaches  you,  the  news  will  have  been  carried  to  the 
Crimea  that  negotiations  for  peace  have  been  opened  on  the  basis 
of  the  four  points.  It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the  Czar  is  in  ^ 
earnest,  and  whether  the  allies  enter  in  a  bond  fide  spirit  upon  the 
deliberations.  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  all  the  Governments  - 
are  heartily  sick  of  the  war,  and  therefore  shall  not  be  surprised 
if  a  peace  be  speedily  arranged.  But  in  the  mean  time  our  news- 
papers must  swagger  a  good  deal  over  the  Czar,  and  persuade  their 
readers  that  we  have  subjected  him  to  great  humiliations.  I  con- 
fess, however,  that  I  do  not  see  the  grounds  for  this  boastful  self- 
glorification.  It  is  true  that  you  have  beaten  the  Russians  in  the 
field,  but  there  is  always  the  broad  fact  remaining  that  Sebas- 
topol  is  not  taken.  It  is  no  fault  of  your  brave  army  that  the 
place  is  still  holding  out  —  the  fact  is  we  never  ought  to  have 
made  the  plunge  in  the  dark  in  the  Crimea  at  all.  Indeed,  it  has 
been  admitted  in  the  House  by  Lord  John  Eussell  that  both 
government  and  generals  had  been  mistaken  in  their  estimate  of 
its  strength.  This  confession  ought  to  suffice  to  condemn  the 
present  Administration  to  dismissal  from  office ;  for  there  can  be 
no  excuse  for  ignorance  on  a  point  which  might  have  been  very 
easily  cleared  up  before  the  expedition  sailed.  I  think  I  could 
have  undertaken  in  June  last  to  have  obtained  the  most  minute 
particulars  as  to  the  strength  of  Sebastopol  for  a  few  thousand 
pounds. 

"  There  are  some  points  raised  in  your  letter  which  I  shall  hope 
to  be  able  to  discuss  with  you  at  my  fireside  when  you  return 
again  to  England,  for  my  wife  and  I  trust  you  will  honor  us  with 
a  visit  to  this  picturesque  and  secluded  part  of  the  country.  But 
in  the  mean  time  I  must  be  allowed  to  say  in  reference  to  your 
allusions  to  a  regular  standing  army,  that  I  am  not  opposed  to  the 
maintenance  of  a  disciplined  force  to  serve  as  a  nucleus  in  case  of 
war,  around  which  the  people  might  rally  to  defend  their  country. 
But  there  is  hardly  a  case  to  be  imagined  or  assumed  in  which  I 
would  consent  to  send  out  a  body  of  land  forces  to  fight  the  battles 


424  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1855. 

of  the  Continent ;  and  last  of  all  would  I  agree  to  send  such  an 
expedition  to  the  shores  of  Eussia. 

"  There  is  now  a  general  complaint  that  we  allowed  our  army  to 
fall  to  too  low  a  standard  in  consequence  of  the  cry  of  the  finan- 
cial reformers  for  a  reduction  of  the  expenditure.  I  am  bound  to 
say  that  if  this  country  adopts  the  policy  of  sending  its  armies  to 
fight  the  Czar  on  his  own  territory,  then  it  is  bound  to  keep  up  a 
force  commensurate  with  the  magnitude  of  such  an  undertaking. 
"We  must  become  a  military  people  like  France  and  Austria.  This 
will  be  contrary  to  our  traditions,  and  quite  incompatible  with  an 
economical  government.  I  am  not  sure  that  constitutional  free- 
dom can  coexist  with  large  standing  armies. .  I  know  of  no  in- 
stance in  which  they  have  flourished  together.  However,  we  will 
adjourn  the  debate  on  this  subject  till  we  meet." 

"  February  11, 1855.  {To  Mr.  Bright)  —  You  made  an  excellent 
speech  at  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  which  at  the  present  moment 
will  compel  many  men  to  listen  to  your  warnings  who  have  hitherto 
been  deaf  to  everything  but  the  appeals  to  *  glory  and  honor.' 

"Did  you  see  Cornewall  Lewis's  speech-?  It  was  a  good  sign 
coming  from  the  Edinburgh  Review. 

"  But  I  can  think  of  nothing  else  but  the  Derby-Disraeli  ex- 
jpos4 !^  .  .  .  .  What  can  your  friend  Dizzy  say  or  do  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  Government,  after  having  agreed  not  merely  to  serve 
under  Palmerston,  but  to  sit  in  the  same  Cabinet  with  Gladstone 
and  Sidney  Herbert !  And  what  will  our  soft  radicals  say  after 
the  affectionate  flirtation  of  Lord  Derby  with  their  great  champion 
of  democracy  all  over  the  world  ?  Lord  D.  seems  to  me  to  have 
played  a  clever  game  for  the  future,  and  is,  I  suppose,  acting  under 
the  inspiration  of  such  men  as  Lord  Lonsdale  in  casting  himself 
loose  from  all  his  old  team  and  opening  the  door  for  fresh  alliances. 
Lord  Palmerston  can't  of  course  last  many  years,  or  perhaps 
months,  and  then  the  '  great  Conservative  party '  is  the  only  one 
not  used  up.  But  what  is  to  become  of  Disraeli  ?  He  can't  be 
first  whilst  Gladstone  is  either  with  him  or  against  him,  and  he 
won't  play  second  to  anybody  but  Palmerston.  Will  it  end  in  his 
going  ambassador  to  Paris  ?  In  the  mean  time  he  has  to  eat  a 
good  deal  of  dirt. 

"  As  for  the  Government,  unless  they  put  on  fresh  masks  and 
dresses,  we  shall  certainly  think  them  the  same  gentlemen  who  got 
us  into  a  '  foolish,  just,  and  necessary  war,'  as  Sidney  Smith  would 

1  **  Lord  Derby  was  sent  for  to  form  a  government,  and  immediately  songht  the 
co-operation  of  Lord  Palmerston,  offering  him  the  leadership  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, which  Mr.  Disraeli  was  willing  to  waive  in  his  favor.  Offers  were  also  made 
throiigh  him  to  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert."  Ashley's  Life  of  Lord 
Palmerston,  ii.  304.  "Derby,"  wrote  Lord  Palmerston  to  his  brother,  "felt  con- 
scious of  the  incapacity  of  the  greater  portion  of  his  party,  and  their  unfitness 
to  govern  the  country."  ^ 


/ 


^T.51.]  THE   CRIMEAN  WAR.  425 

call  it,  and  then  threw  away  the  finest  army  we  ever  had  for  want 
of  staff  and  generals.  As  for  the  exchange  of  Panmure  for  New- 
castle, we  who  have  been  behind  the  scenes  know  that  the  public 
gain  nothing  by  that.  Again  and  again  I  ask  myself,  in  witness- 
ing the  childish  glee  with  which  the  press  and  public  call  for 
Palmerston  to  serve  them  —  are  we  not  a  used-up  nation  ?  Could 
any  people  not  in  its  dotage  look  to  such  a  quarter  for  a  saviour  ? 
However,  it  is  a  consolation  that  we  shall  soon  see  the  bursting  of 
that  bubble  which  the  cockney  clacqueurs  have  been  so  industri- 
ously blowing  for  the  last  few  years 

"  As  respects  the  prospect  of  peace,  I  am  of  opinion  that  Palm-  . 
erston  will  be  anxious  to  steal  from  Aberdeen  the  credit  of  get- 
ting out  of  the  war.  Depend  on  it  the  court  and  aristocracy  are 
more  than  ever  anxious  to  put  an  end  to  hostilities.  They  have 
found  for  the  first  time  that  their  prestige,  privileges,  and  dearest 
interests  are  more  endangered  than  those  of  any  other  class  by  a 
state  of  war.  It  will  be  a  blessed  advantage  to  us  that  hence- 
forth our  best  allies  in  the  advocacy  of  peace  principles  will  be  in 
high  quarters.  My  only  doubt  is  whether  Louis  Napoleon  has 
some  sinister  motives  for  continuing  the  war.  I  don't  like  the 
tone  of  Drouyn  de  L'Huy's  notes  to  Prussia.  They  are  novel  in 
style,  especially  for  so  cautious  and  clever  a  diplomatist,  and  I 
learn  from  Faucher  they  are  making  a  great  and  mischievous  im- 
pression upon  the  public  mind  in  Prussia. 

"  For  my  part,  I  can't  think  of  these  things,  and  to  what  an 
extent  v:)c  as  a  people  are  wrong  in  our  alliances  and  tendencies, 
without  most  cynical  misgivings  respecting  the  future  course  of 
our  foreign  policy.  There  is  positively  no  intelligence  amongst 
the  masses  on  such  subjects  to  serve  as  a  leverage  in  dealing  with 
the  abounding  fallacies  of  the  juveniles,  who,  fresh  from  college, 
*  do '  this  department  of  our  periodical  literature,  and  take  either 
the  line  of  our  old  aristocratic  diplomacy  in  favor  of  the  *  balance 
of  power '  and  dynastic  alliances,  or  the  more  modern  and  equally 
unsound  and  mischievous  line  newly  adopted  by  our  so-called 
'  democrats '  on  behalf  of  Mazzini  and  the  '  nationalities.'  There 
is  no  out-of-doors  support  for  the  party  of  peace  and  non-inter- 
vention." 

"  Midhurst,  Sept.  30.  {To  Mr.  Bright)  —  I  think  you  will  read 
the  enclosed  with  interest.  There  is  a  description  of  wliat  the 
writer  witnessed  at  the  hospital  in  Sebastopol,  which  surpasses 
everything  I  have  read.  The  graphic  account  of  the  horses  lying 
harnessed  to  the  guns  at  the  bottom  of  the  clear  blue  water  comes 
back  to  my  mind's  eye  like  a  real  picture.  You  will  see  that  he 
speaks  of  our  faihire  at  the  Eedan  as  arising  solely  from  the  fact 
of  the  men  not  following  their  officers  to  the  assault.  He  is 
always  on  the  side  of  the  men,  and  he  finds  excuses  for  them  at 


w 


426  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1855. 

the  expense  of  the  officers.  But  the  real  solution  of  the  disaster 
is  that  the  troops  were  raw  recruits  —  mere  boys,  and  I  expect 
that,  after  a  little  more  recrimination  between  the  parties  con- 
cerned, the  whole  truth  will  come  out,  that,  in  the  words  of  the 
Times  correspondent,  '  we  are  trusting  the  honor,  reputation,  and 
glory  of  Great  Britain  to  undisciplined  lads  from  the  plough  or 
the  lanes  of  our  towns  and  villages.'  It  will  end  in  an  exposure 
of  the  hollowness  of  all  those  demonstrations  of  the  press  and 
the  public  in  favor  of  this  just  and  necessary  war  —  for  it  will 
come  out  that  the  bone  and  muscle  of  the  country  take  no  part 
in  it,  but  leave  the  recruiting  sergeant  as  best  he  can  to  kidnap 
mere  children  and  carry  them  off'  to  the  shambles. 

"  This  sham  must  blow  up,  but  the  press  and  Palmerston  are  so 
interested  in  not  telling  the  people  that  they  must  do  something 
more  than  pass  resolutions,  WTite  inflammatory  articles,  or  preach 
incendiary  sermons,  —  that  they  must  in  fact  do  the  fighting  as 
well  as  the  shouting  for  war, — that  I  expect  they  will  let  matters 
go  on  till  we  are  plunged  into  some  deep  humiliation  and  dis- 
grace. As  it  is,  the  French  army  are  trying  to  soothe  us  with 
compliments  so  overdone  that  we  cannot  help  seeing  through  the 
grimaces  which  accompany  them.  Depend  on  it,  if  the  war 
goes  on,  men  of  sense  will  see  that  we  cnust  either  have  the  con- 
scription, like  our  opponents  and  allies,  to  secure  a  fair  represen- 
tation of  the  manhood  of  the  country  in  the  battle-field,  or  drop 
our  bombastic  posturing  and  come  down  to  a  level  with  the  Sar- 
dinians, and  be  a  mere  contingent  of  the  French  army.  The 
French  will  gradually,  but  with  every  possible  protestation  of 
respect,  bring  us  to  this.  They  are  now  acting  almost  independ- 
ently of  us,  and  from  this  time  we  shall  see  more  and  more  the 
difficulty  of  our  maintaining  an  equality. 

"What  is  doing  about  the  penny  paper  ?i     I  hear  from  Sturge 

that  he  has  doubts  about .     He  speaks  of  and . 

I  have  the  most  perfect  confidence  in  the  good  faith  of  these  men, 
but  if  a  precaution  such  as  is  contemplated  be  taken  that  the 
paper  shall  not  go  wrong,  I  should  be  inclined  to  say  that  it  would 
be  as  well  not  to  have  a  too  enthusiastic  peace  man  as  its  man- 
aging editor.  The  difficulty  is  to  get  a  daily  newspaper  with  a 
circulation  of  30,000  established.  If  it  be  an  expansion  of  tlie 
Herald  of  Peace,  it  will  never  be  established  as  a  newspaper  —  at 
least  not  this  year.  There  must  be  a  good  deal  of  the  wisdom  of 
the  serpent  as  well  as  the  harmlessness  of  the  dove  to  float  such 

1  This  refers  to  the  establishment  of  the  Morning  Star.  Cobden  had  no  finan- 
cial interest  in  the  venture,  Mr.  Sturge  being  a  principal  subscriber.  It  was  under- 
stood that  Cobden  and  Mr.  Bright  were  to  be  consulted  as  to  the  policy  of  the  new 
journal.  As  we  shall  see,  this  constant  reference  to  them  was  so  overdone  that  Cob- 
den himself  warned  the  editor  against  it,  —  an  instructive  warning  to  leading  poli- 
ticians who  meddle  with  newspapers. 


iET.  51.]  THE   CRIMEAN   WAR.  427 

a  paper,  and  unless  it  can  be  established  as  a  newspaper,  it  will 
not  attain  the  object  we  have  in  view.    What  say  you  to  this  ? " 

"Aug.  6.     {To  Mr.  Bright.)  —  What  an  atrocious  article  there 
is  in  the  Athenceum  of  last  Saturday  upon  Tennyson's  poems. 
War  is  in  itself  a  blessing  and  the  mother  of  blessings.     We  owe    j 
to  it  our  great  poets  and  men  of  genius.^      It  is  quite  clear,    I 
according  to  the  writer,  that  there  must  have  been  a  mistake  in    / 
the  record  of  Christ's  preaching.     It  was  war,  not  peace,  he  left 
for  a  legacy  to  man.     How  could  he  possibly  bring  peace  into  the 
world  to  corrupt  and  degrade  it  ?     It  is  enthroning  the  devil  in 
the  place  of  the  God  of  mercy,  truth,  love,  and  justice ;  for  what 
has  war  to  do  with  these  ? " 

''August  8,  1855.  —  ....  I  paid  a  visit  on  Wednesday  to  my 
neighbor  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  and  met  Lord  Aberdeen,  Koundell 
Palmer,  and  some  others.  The  old  Earl  was  even  more  emphatic 
than  at  the  same  place  a  year  ago  in  lamenting  to  me.  that  he  had 
suffered  himself  to  be  drawn  into  the  Russian  war.  He  declared 
that  he  ought  to  have  resigned.^  Speaking  of  the  authors  of  his 
policy  he  said,  '  It  was  not  the  Parliament  or  the  public,  but  the  \/ 
Press  that  forced  the  Government  into  the  war.  The  public  mind 
was  not  at  first  in  an  uncontrollable  state,  but  it  was  made  so  by 

the  Press.'     He  might  have  added  that had  something  to  do 

with  it.     I  really  could  not  help  pitying  the  old  gentleman,  for 
he  w^as  in  an  unenviable  state  of  mind,  and  yet  I  doubt  if  there  be    ^ 
a  more  reprehensible  human  act  than  to  lead  a  nation  into  an  / 
unnecessary  war,  as  Walpole,  North,  Pitt,  and  Aberdeen  have  done, 
against  their  own  conviction  and  at  the  dictation  of  others "      / 

''Sept.  18.     (     „     ) — I  am  actually  so  amazed  and  disgusted  \/ 
and  excited  at  the  frenzy  to  which  all  classes  —  and  especially 
those  called  middle  and  respectable  — have  abandoned  themselves, 
and  am  so  horrified  at  the  impudent  impiety  with  which  they 
make  God  a  witness  and  partaker  of  their  devilish  paroxysm,  that 

1  Maud  was  published  at  this  time,  full  of  beautiful  poetry  and  barbarous  poli-        . 
tics,   about  "the  long  long  canker  of  peace  being  over  and  done,"  and  so  forth.         1 
The  singular  implication  of  the  poet  is  that  the  best  way  to  rescue  the  poor  from        / 
being  "  hovell'd  and  hustled  together,  each  sex,   like  swine,"  is  to  cultivate  "  the       / 
blood-red  blossom  of   war."      Unluckily  war   cannot   go  on  without  taxes,  and       > 
taxes  in  the  long  run  in  a  thousand  ways  aggravate  the  hovelling  and  hustling  of 
the  poor,  as  the  state  of  the  laborers  after  the  war  of  Cobden's  youth  showed. 
That  a  man  of  Mr.  Tennyson's  genius  should  have  been  so  led  astray,  only  illustrates 
the  raging  folly  of  those  two  years. 

2  Sir  James  Graham  in  the  same  way  said  to  Mr.  Bright  :  "You  were  entirely 
right  about  that  war  ;  we  were  entirely  wrong,  and  we  never  should  have  gone 
into  it.  "  Bright's  Speeches,  i.  192,  *'  This  war,"  wrote  Sir  George  C.  Lewis,  who 
joined  the  Palmerston  Government  after  Mr.  Gladstone's  resignation,  "  has  been 
distasteful  to  me  from  the  beginning,  and  especially  so  from  the  time  when  it  ceased 
to  be  defensive  and  the  Russian  territory  was  invaded.  My  dislike  of  it,  and  my 
conviction  of  its  repugnance  to  the  interests  of  England  and  Europe  was  only  in- 
creased with  its  progress."     Feb.  14,  1855.  —  Letters,  p.  291. 


428  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1855. 

I  would  rather  say  nothing  about  it.  My  only  hope  is  in  Louis 
Napoleon  —  his  interests  and  necessities.  When  I  saw  Lord 
Aberdeen  a  few  weeks  since,  he  said  that  his  only  hope  of  peace 
was  founded  on  a  favorable  issue  of  the  siege. of  Sebastopol ;  that 
if  Louis  Napoleon  could  meet  with  a  '  success '  to  satisfy  his  army, 
he  would  seize  the  opportunity  of  making  peace.  Well,  he  has 
now  the  opportunity,  and  I  have  a  strong  impression  (though 
founded  on  no  facts)  that  he  has  sent  pacific  proposals  to  our 
Government,  and  that  this  embarrassing  message  is  the  cause  of 
the  frequent  and  long  Cabinet  Councils  —  for  how  can  oioi'  Gov- 
ernment make  out  a  case  to  their  deluded  followers  to  justify  a 
peace  which  must  certainly  involve  the  abandonment  of  the  Cri- 
mea ?  The  danger  is  that  Louis  Napoleon,  whose  one  dominant 
idea  is  the  alliance  with  England,  may  yield  to  Palmerston  and 
the  warlike  spirit  of  our  people,  and  go  on  with  the  war.  But  he 
has  grave  reasons  against  such  a  course  at  home.  He  will  have 
to  raise  another  army  to  pursue  the  war  in  the  interior  of  Eussia ; 
bread  is  constantly  rising  in  price ;  and  there  is  an  ugly  symptom 
of  rottenness  in  the  financial  state  of  France,  as  illustrated  by  the 
Dr.  and  Cr.  of  tlie  Bank  of  France,  and  the  rapid  fall  of  some  of 
the  public  securities.  How  does  it  illustrate  the  madness  of  our 
combative  countrymen  when  one  can  only  turn  with  hope  for 
peace  to  the  coercion  of  a  Bonaparte  upon  the  deliberations  of  our 
Cabinet !  I  don't  see  how  we  can  act  with  Gladstone  in  the  broad 
advocacy  of  non-intervention,  so  long  as  he  professes  to  be  an  ad- 
vocate of  the  policy  of  invading  Russia.  He  seems  to  put  an  im- 
passable gulf  between  us  by  that  one  argument,  for  if  anything  is 
ever  to  be  done  again  in  favor  of  peace  principles,  it  must  be  by 
persuading  the  masses  at  least  to  repudiate  the  very  principle 
of  the  Russian  invasion " 

"  Oct.  5.  {To  M.  Chevalier)  — If  war  had  not  absorbed  my  anx- 
ieties, I  should  have  given  all  my  sympathies  to  the  great  indus- 
trial rivahy  to  which  you  have  invited  the  nations  of  the  world. 
I  should  have  thought  of  the  Champs  Elys^es  if  my  attention  had 
not  been  unhappily  so  much  distrait  by  the  terrible  scene  which 
was  exhibiting  on  the  Champ  cle  Mars.  In  fine,  I  deferred  my 
visit  to  the  Temple  of  Peace  until  after  that  of  Janus  should  have 
been  closed.  But  I  fear  that  present  appearances  are  against  the 
realization  of  my  plan ;  and  it  is  more  than  ever  uncertain  when 
I  shall  see  you.  Under  these  circumstances  I  shall  trouble  you 
upon  paper,  instead  of  vivd  voce,  with  a  little  unreserved  chat  upon 
the  subject  of  the  war. 

"  You  will  remember  that  we  had  some  confidential  correspond- 
ence a  few  years  ago,  when  the  state  of  popular  feeling  here 
towards  your  Government  was  the  very  opposite  to  what  it  is 
now ;  and  I  have  reason  to  know  that  that  correspondence  had  a 


^T.51.]  THE   CRIMEAN  WAR.  429 

favorable  influence  upon  the  relations  of  the  two  countries,  through 
the  publication  of  those  facts  and  statistics  which  you  gave  me ; 
and  I  wish  we  could  now  in  a  similar  manner  contribute  to  the^^ 
restoration  of  the  peace  of  the  world.  When  in  1852  I  published 
in  speech  and  pamphlet  my  views  respecting  the  cry  of  a  *  French 
invasion/  I  was  denounced  by  nearly  every  London  newspaper, 
and  at  present  I  am  in  pretty  nearly  the  same  predicament  re- 
specting my  opinions  upon  the  war.  But  is  it  not  possible  that 
two  or  three  years  may  produce  in  my  opponents  the  same  change 
upon  the  one  question  that  has  undoubtedly  been  effected  on  the 
other  ?  Depend  on  it  there  is  a  good  deal  of  unreasoning  passion 
and  pecuniary  selfishness  on  the  part  of  the  people  and  the  Press 
of  this  country  in  the  present  warlike  clamor. 

"  I  know  proprietors  of  newspapers   (the 

for  example)  who  have  pocketed  3000/.  or  4000Z.  a  year  through 
the  war  as  directly  as  if  the  money  had  been  voted  to  them  in  the 
Parliamentary  estimates.  It  is  not  likely,  unless  they  are  very 
disinterested  specimens  of  human  nature,  that  they  will  oppose  a 
policy  so  profitable  to  themselves.  But  the  people,  who  have  no 
interest  in  being  misled,  will  probably  become  satiated  with  mo- 
notonous appeals  to  their  combative  passions,  and  then  the  pajoers 
will  change.  The  moment  this  reaction  of  feeling  shows  itself  in 
considerable  force,  there  are  all  the  most  able  statesmen  of  this 
country  ready  to  head  the  party  of  peace.  For  it  is  a  remarkable 
fact,  that,  w^hilst  the  mass  of  politicians  appear  to  be  so  warlike,  ^ 
their  leaders  are  all  in  their  hearts  opposed  to  a  continuance  of 
the  war.  I  do  not  of  course  include  Lord  Palmerston  amongst 
the  number  of  leaders,  for  it  is  a  notorious  fact  that  he  never  pos- 
sessed the  confidence  of  a  dozen  members  of  the  House,  and  was 
therefore  never  at  the  head  of  a  party.  It  is  only  because  all  the  \/ 
Parliamentary  chiefs  shrink  from  the  responsibility  of  continuing 
the  war  that  he  has  been  enabled  to  seize  the  reins.  All  men  of 
the  age  of  seventy-two,  with  unsatisfied  ambition,  are  desperadoes ; 
and  Lord  Palmerston,  in  addition  to  this  qualification,  having  had 
the  experience  of  nearly  half  a  century  of  Parliamentary  life,  hav- 
ing continued  to  persuade  the  democracy  that  lie  was  a  revolu- 
tionist, whilst  the  aristocracy  knew  him  to  be  their  safe  friend,  he 
became  the  fittest  incarnation  of  the  delusion,  bewilderment,  and 
deception  into  which  the  public  mind  had  been  plunged ;  and  he 
and  his  colleagues  hold  office  to  carry  on  a  war  for  tlie  continu- 
ance of  which  no  other  statesmen  choose  to  be  responsible.  Had 
it  not  been  for  the  war,  the  present  ministry  could  never  have  V 
been  in  power,  and  it  will  not  last  two  months  after  the  return  of 
peace." 

"  Dec.  19.  {To  R.  Ashworth.)  — I  have  been  gratified  by  the  re- 
ceipt of  your  letter.     The  newspaper  also  reached  me.     It  is  sad 


430  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1856. 

to  see  the  bewilderment  of  the  poor  people  about  the  price  of 
bread,  but  we  ought  to  be  very  tolerant  with  them,  seeing  how 
much  ignorance  we  meet  with  amongst  their  '  betters.' 

"  The  papers  are  underrating  the  effect  of  the  drain  of  capital  for 
the  war  on  the  floating  capital  of  the  country.  People  look  at  the 
assessment  returns  of  real  property,  and  they  say,  '.See  how  much 
more  rich  we  are  than  we  were  in  the  last  war.'  ^But  this  fixed 
property  is  not  available  for  war.  It  is  only  the  floating  capital 
which  sets  it  in  motion  that  is  available.  Now,  I  suspect  that  tlie 
proportion  of  floating  to  fixed  capital  employed  in  the  manufac- 
tures of  the  country  is  less  in  relation  to  the  number  of  workpeople 
employed  than  ever  it  was.  Am  I  right  in  this  ?  Has  not  the  ten- 
dency been  to  increase  the  fixed  as  compared  with  the  floating 
capital  in  a  mill?  If  so,  it  is  a  very  serious  question  how  soon 
the  withdrawal  of  the  life-blood  (the  floating  capital)  may  stop  the 
whole  body.  With  interest  of  capital  at  six  to  seven  per  cent  for 
trading  purposes,  how  long  will  it  be  before  some  of  the  weaker 
among  you  go  to  the  wall  ?  If,  as  you  say,  the  cotton  trade  as  a 
whole  has  paid  no  profit,  there  must  be  a  large  proportion  that 
are  losing,  and  they  will  break  if  the  war  goes  on.  Then  will 
follow  distress  among  the  operatives. 

"  You  hear  a  good  deal  about  agricultural  prosperity.  Turn  to 
the  dictionary,  and  *  agriculturist '  means  one  who  has  skill  to  cul- 
tivate the  land.  The  laborer  is  the  agriculturist  quite  as  much 
as  the  farmer,  and  he  belongs  to  a  body  five  to  one  more  numer- 
ous. I  assure  you  I  never  saw  more  distress  among  this  class. 
They  are  generally  employed.  But  their  wages  here  never  exceed 
12s.,  and  are  often  only  10s.,  and  if  you  try  to  calculate  how  a 
man  and  his  wife  and  three  or  four  small  children  live  upon  this 
sum,  with  bread  at  2|c?.  a  lb.,  you  will  find  your  arithmetical 
talent  very  much  taxed.  Dry  bread  is  all  that  they  can  get. 
The  pigs  have  disappeared  from  their  sties.  They  and  their  chil- 
dren are  looking  haggard  and  pale  and  ragged,  and  this  is  agricul- 
tural prosperity." 


y 


When  the  war  was  at  last  brought  to  an  end  at  the  Congress 
of  Paris  in  the  spring  of  1856,  two  remarkable  steps  were  taken 
by  the  assembled  plenipotentiaries  in  Cobden's  direction.  They 
recognized  the  expediency  and  the  possibility  of  submitting  inter- 
national differences  to  arbitration.  Secondly,  they  incorporated 
,  in  the  public  law  of  Europe  certain  changes  in  the  right  of  mari- 
^  time  capture  which  tended  to  make  trade  which  was  free  in  time 
of  peace,  as  free  as  possible  in  time  of  war  also. 


iET.52.]  DEATH   OF  HIS  SON.  431 

CHAPTEE    XXV. 

DEATH  OF  HIS   SON. 

At  this  moment  Cobden  was  stricken  by  one  of  those  cruel  blows 
from  which  men  and  women  often  recover,  but  after  which  they 
are  never  again  what  they  were  before.  He  lost  his  only  son,  a 
boy  of  singular  energy  and  promise.  The  boy,  who  was  now  fif- 
teen years  old,  was  at  school  at  Weinheim,  about  fourteen  miles 
from  Heidelberg.  He  was  suddenly  seized  by  an  attack  of  scarlet 
fever,  and  died  in  the  course  of  three  or  four  days  (April  6,  1856), 
before  his  parents  at  home  even  knew  that  he  was  ill.  There  was 
nothing  to  soften  the  horror  of  the  shock.  Cobden  was  the  first 
to  hear  of  what  had  happened.  His  friend,  Chevalier  Bunsen,  had 
recommended  the  school,  a  few  miles  away  from  Charlottenburg, 
his  own  residence.  The  schoolmaster  sent  Bunsen  a  telegraphic 
message,  and  took  for  granted  that  Bunsen  would  communicate 
with  Cobden.  Bunsen,  on  the  other  hand,  took  it  for  granted 
that  the  news  would  be  sent  by  the  schoolmaster.  The  result 
was  that  Cobden  heard  nothing  until  he  heard  all.  In  a  letter  to 
one  of  the  most  intimate  of  his  friends,  he  told  how  the  blow  fell :  — 

"  I  had  invited  Colonel  Fitzmayer  from  the  Crimea  to  breakfast 
at  nine  on  the  Thursday.  When  I  came  down  from  my  sleep- 
ing-room in  Grosvenor  Street,  I  found  him-  and  the  breakfast 
waiting.  My  letters  were  lying  on  the  table,  and  I  apologized 
for  opening  them  before  beginning  our  meal,  and  the  third  letter 
I  opened  informed  me  that  my  dear  boy,  who  by  the  latest  ac- 
counts was  described  as  the  healthiest  and  strongest  in  the  school, 
was  dead  and  in  his  grave.  No  one  not  placed  in  the  same  situa- 
tion can  form  the  faintest  conception  of  my  task  in  making  the 
journey  to  this  place  [Dunford],  which  took  me  five  hours,  bearing  a 
secret  which  I  knew  was  worse  than  a  sentence  of  death  on  my 
poor  wife,  for  she  would  have  gladly  given  her  life,  a  dozen  times, 
if  it  were  possible  to  save  his.  I  found  her  in  the  happiest 
spirits,  having  just  before  been  reading  to  my  brother  and  the 
family  circle  a  long  letter  from  the  dear  boy,  written  a  few  days 
previously,  and  when  he  was  in  the  best  possible  state  of  health. 
I  tried  to  manage  my  communication,  but  the  dreadful  journey 
had  been  too  much  for  me,  and  I  broke  down  instantly,  and  was 
obliged  to  confess  all.  She  did  not  comprehend  the  loss,  but  was 
only  stunned ;  and  for  twenty-four  hours  was  actually  lavishing 
attentions  on  me,  and  superintending  her  household  as  before." 

I  have  been  told  how  he  entered  his  house  at  nightfall,  and  met 
his  wife  unexpectedly  on  the  threshold ;  she  uttered  an  exclama- 


432  LIFE  OF   COBDEN.  [1856. 

tion  as  she  caught  his  haggard  and  stricken  face.  His  little 
children  Avere  making  merry  in  the  drawing-room.  He  could 
only  creep  to  his  room,  where  he  sat  with  hent  head  and  prostrate, 
unstrung  limbs.  When  the  first  hours  were  over,  and  the  un- 
happy mother  realized  the  miserable  thing  that  had  befallen  her, 
she  sat  for  many  days  like  a  statue  of  marble,  neither  speaking 
nor  seeming  to  hear;  her  eyes  not  even  turning  to  notice  her  little 
girl,  whom  they  placed  upon  her  knee,  her  hair  blanching  with 
the  hours. 

It  would  be  a  violation  of  sacred  things  to  dwell  upon  the 
months  that  followed.  Cobden  felt  as  men  of  his  open  and  simple 
nature  are  wont  to  feel,  when  one  of  the  great  cruelties  of  life 
comes  home  to  their  bosoms.  He  was  bewildered  by  the  eternal 
perplexities  of  reconcihng  untimely  death  with  the  common 
morality  of  things.  "  God  ! "  he  exclaims,  repeating  a  common- 
place of  the  grave,  so  old  and  well-worn,  yet  ever  fresh  in  its 
pathos,  "  what  a  mystery  of  mysteries  is  this  life  —  that  one  so 
young  and  bright,  around  whom  our  hopes  and  dreams  had  been 
twining  themselves  for  fifteen  years,  should  be  in  a  few  hours 
struck  down  and  withered  like  a  weed  !  "  His  was  not  a  soul  to 
lose  itself  in  brooding  over  the  black  enigma.  There  is  not  a  word 
of  rebellion.  He  accepts  the  affliction  as  a  decree  of  the  inscruta- 
ble Power,  and  his  quiet  and  humble  patience  touches  us  the 
more,  because  we  discern  the  profound  suffering  beneath  it.  His 
anguish  at  the  blighting  of  his  own  love  and  hope,  was  made 
keener  by  the  strange  torpor  which  now  and  for  long  afflicted  his 
wife.  His  tenderness  and  devotion  to  her  in  the  midst  of  all  this 
agony,  were  unremitting  and  inexhaustible.  Six  weeks  after  the 
fatal  news  had  come,  he  was  able  to  write  to  his  brother-in-law  :  — 
"  I  have  not  been  out  of  her  sight  for  an  hour  at  a  time '  (except 
at  the  funeral)  since  we  learnt  our  bereavement ;  and  I  do  not 
believe  she  would  have  been  alive  and  in  her  senses  now,  if  I  had 
not  been  able  to  lessen  her  grief  by  sharing  it."  And  this  urgent 
demand  upon  his  sympathies  and  attention  continued  beyond 
weeks,  into  months. 

"  My  poor  wife,"  he  writes  to  a  friend,^  "  makes  but  slow  pro- 
gress in  the  recovery  of  her  health.  She  is  on  the  law^n  or  in  the 
field  all  day  with  a  little  spade  in  hand,  digging  up  the  weeds ; 
it  is  the  only  muscular  effort  she  can  make,  and  it  unfortunately 
leaves  her  mind  free  to  brood  over  the  one  absorbing  subject. 
The  open  air  must  in  time  give  her  strength,  but  as  yet  she  has 
not  been  able  to  pass  a  night  without  the  aid  of  opiates.  Her 
friends  must  have  pity  and  forget  her  for  a  time.  She  is  not  a 
heroine ;  but  hers  is  a  terrible  case,  and  might  have  taxed  the 
energies  of  the  strongest  mind  of  her  sex.     I  am  sure  that  they 

1  To  Joseph  Parkes,  May  23,  1866. 


^T.  52.]  DEATH   OF  HIS   SON.  433 

who  are  impatient  with  her  under  such  a  severe  trial,  can  never 
have  realized  in  their  minds  the  ordeal  she  has  had  to  go  through. 
She  requires  the  patience  and  tender  treatment  of  a  child.  It  is 
true,  as  Bright  says  (who  is  one  of  the  tenderest-hearted  creatures 
I  know),  that  we  know  but  imperfectly  what  a  mother  suffers  in 
such  a  case." 

To  the  same  friend,  a  fortnight  later,  he  says : ^  —  "I  cannot 
prove  as  good  as  my  word  by  coming  to  town  this  week,  but  my 
poor  wife  will  accompany  me  on  Monday.  She  is  as  helpless  as 
one  of  her  young  children,  and  requires  as  much  forbearance  and 
kindness.  God  knows  how  much  the  comfort  and  regularity  of 
her  domestic  life  have  always  been  made  subservient,  willingly 
and  meekly  so,  to  my  political  engagements,  without  one  atom 
of  ambition  to  profit  by  the  privileges  which  to  some  natures  offer 
a  kind  of  compensation  for  family  discomfort.  And,  bearing  this  • 
in  view,  I  have  from  the  moment  that  this  terrible  blow  fell  on 
us,  determined  to  make  every  other  claim  on  my  time  and  atten- 
tion subordinate  (even  to  the  giving  up  of  my  seat)  to  the  task  of 
mitigating  her  sufferings.  No  other  human  being  but  myself  can  v  / 
afford  her  the  slightest  relief,  I  sometimes  doubt  whether  for  the 
next  six  months  I  shall  be  able  to  leave  her  for  twenty-four  hours 
tos^ether." 

He  repeats,  with  the  helpless  iteration  of  an  incurable  grief, 
how  hard  is  the  case  of  a  mother,  who  had  not  seen  her  son  waste 
gradually  away  as  she  tended  his  death-bed,  but  who  suddenly 
and  in  a  moment  stumbled  over  his  corpse  as  she  passed  cheer- 
fully from  room  to  room.  She  never  to  the  last  submitted  to  the 
blow  with  the  graces  of  resignation,  and  hence  she  never  had  the 
comparative  solace  that  might  have  come  either  from  religion  or 
from  reason.  To  the  end  she  fought  against  her  fate.  "  But  if 
there  be  one  act  of  contumacy,"  Cobden  wrote  in  tender  depreca- 
tion, "  which  God  would  pardon  beyond  all  others  in  his  creatures, 
it  is  surely  that  which  springs  from  the  excessive  affection  of  a 
mother  for  her  child." 

The  external  trifles  of  life  were  in  sombre  accord  with  the 
tragedy  that  overshadowed  their  hearts.  All  things,  small  as  well 
as  great,  in  which  Cobden  was  concerned,  seemed  to  go  wrong. 
His  best  cows  lost  their  calves.  The  fruit  in  the  orchard  was  all 
blighted.  A  fine  crop  of  hay  lay  spoiling  in  the  rain.  Deeper 
than  these  vexations  was  his  anxious  concern  for  Mr.  Bright. 
For  eighteen  years  'almost  without  an  interval  Mr.  Bright  had 
been  at  work  in  public  causes.  The  labor  of  preparation  and 
advocacy  would  in  itself  have  been  enormous,  but  the  strain  was 
peculiarly  intensified  by  the  fact  that  tlie  labor  was  pursued  in 
face  of  misrepresentation  and  obloquy  such  as  few  English  states- 

^  To  Joseph  Parkes,  June  4,  1856. 
28 


434  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1856. 

men  have  ever  had  to  endure.  At  a  time  when  repose  would 
under  any  circumstances  have  become  necessary,  instead  of  repose 
came  the  violent  excitement  of  the  liussian  War.  Mr.  Bright's 
health  gave  way,  and  many  of  his  friends  began  to  fear  that  he 
was  permanently  disabled.  "I  think  of  him,"  Cobden  wrote, 
"  with  more  serious  apprehension  than  he  is  aware  of"  And  his 
correspondence  with  their  common  friends  shows  the  reality  of 
his  solicitude.  This  is  an  extract  from  one  of  his  letters  of  that 
time :  —  "I  have  always  had  a  sort  of  selfish  share  in  Bright's 
career,  for  I  have  felt  as  though,  when  passing  the  zenith  of  life, 
I  was  handing  over  every  principle  and  cause  I  had  most  at  heart 
to  the  advocacy  of  one,  not  only  younger  and  more  energetic,  but 

with  gifts  of  natural  eloquence  to  which  I  never  pretended 

Perhaps  there  never  were  two  men  who  lived  in  such  transparent 
intimacy  of  mind  as  Bright  and  myself  Next  to  the  loss  of  my 
boy,  I  have  had  no  sorrow  so  constant  and  great  as  from  his 
illness.  The  two  together  make  me  feel  quite  unnerved,  and  I 
seem  to  be  always  feeling  about  in  my  mind  for  an  excuse  for 
quitting  the  public  scene.  Bright's  loss,  if  permanent,  is  a  public 
calamity.  If  you  could  take  the  opinion  of  the  whole  House,  he 
would  be  pronounced,  by  a  large  majority,  to  combine  more  earnest- 
ness, courage,  honesty,  and  eloquence,  than  any  other  man.  But 
we  will  not  speak  of  him  as  of  the  past.  God  grant  that  he  may 
recover ! " ^ 

Mr.  Bright  and  his  family  were  staying  in  the  autumn  of  this 
year  at  Llandudno.  It  happened  that  a  friend,  about  the  same 
time,  offered  the  use  of  her  house  in  the  neighborhood  of  Bangor 
to  Cobden.  Mrs.  Cobden  seemed  to  be  falling  into  a  settled 
torpor,  which  alarmed  her  husband.  Dreading  the  winter  gloom 
and  the  association  of  home,  he  resolved  to  try  a  great  change,  and 
accepting  his  friend's  offer,  he  went  with  his  family  to  Wales. 
Here  the  clouds  slowly  began  to  show  a  rift.  Mr.  Bright  and  he 
paid  one  another  visits,  with  the  bargain  exacted  by  Cobden  that 
not  a  word  should  be  exchanged  about  politics.  He  was  slightly 
reassured  as  to  his  friend's  condition.  At  home  there  were  signs 
of  better  things.  Everybody  about  them  was  kind  and  neighborly. 
Friendly  offices  were  pressed  on  the  suffering  mother  by  good 
women,  "  such  indeed,"  says  Cobden,  "  as  are  found  in  the  middle 
and  upper  ranks  in  every  corner  of  Britain."  Mrs.  Cobden 
roused  herself  to  talk  her  own  Welsh  among  the  poor  people  who 
knew  no  other  language,  and  who  brightened  up  and  became 
confidential  the  moment  that  they  were  addressed  in  their  own 
tongue.  Her  little  children  gradually  became  a  diversion  and 
resource.  But  her  husband  could  not  permit  himself  to  do  more 
than  hope  that  she  was  perhaps  recovering.     His  own  mind  began 

1  To  Joseph  Parkes,  Nov.  11,  1856. 


J3t.  52.]  CHINESE   AFFAIRS.  435 

to  recover  its  tone,  and  his  interest  in  public  affairs  to  revive. 
Lord  Brougham  among  others  was  very  anxious  to  impress  upon 
him  the  doctrine  that  it  is  Work  only,  and  not  Time,  that  can 
relieve  the  mind  from  the  pressure  of  bereavement.  "  If  I  had 
only  my  own  case  to  consult,"  Cobden  said,  "  I  would  at  once 
return  to  the  duties  of  life,  and  try  to  escape  from  the  thoughts  of 
the  past  in  the  hard  labor  and  turmoil  of  politics." 

Of  the  prospects  of  domestic  legislation,  he  writes : — "I  suppose 
the  work  to  be  attempted  next  session  is  law  reform ;  and  nothing 
is  more  pressing.  Thorough  measures,  such  as  simplifying  the 
sale  of  land  up  to  something  like  the  Irish  Encumbered  Estates 
standard,  shall  have  my  hearty  support  as  industriously  in  the 
way  of  votes  as  if  I  were  in  the  government.  But  I  tell  you  can- 
didly, T  think  this  work  would  be  better  done  if  the  Tories  were 
in.  The  Lords  rule  this  land  in  ordinary  times  supremely.  It  is 
only  once  in  ten  or  twenty  years  that  with  a  great  effort  the 
country  thrusts  them  off  from  some  bone  of  contention,  but  merely 
to  leave  them  in  possession  of  the  rest  of  the  carcass  as  securely 
as  ever.  Now  the  Lords  look  on  the  Tories  as  their  party.  They 
know  that  to  enable  them  to  keep  office  something  must  be  done, 
and  as  they  cannot  satisfy  the  Radicals  in  organic  questions,  they 
strain  a  point  to  let  their  men  have  the  credit  of  some  thorough 
practical  reforms  of  the  law  and  administration.  Hence  the  good 
round  measure  of  Chancery  Eeform  which  the  Peers  passed  lor 
the  Derby-Disraeli  government.  And  depend  on  it,  if  we  were 
now  on  the  left-hand  side  of  the  Speaker's  chair  again,  there 
would  be  a  better  measure  of  law  reform  passed  than  we  are  likely 
to  see  next  session."  ^ 

Nowhere  can  prospects  be  calculated  with  so  little  certainty  as 
in  parliamentary  politics.  The  session  for  which  Cobden  thus 
anticipated  such  tranquil  occupation,  proved  to  be  one  of  the  most 
striking  landmarks  in  his  history. 


CHAPTEK    XXVL 

CHINESE  AFFAIRS — COBDEN'S  MOTION — THE  DISSOLUTION. 

The  first  week  of  the  new  year  (1857)  found  Cobden  back  again 
at  Dunford  ;  but  at  the  end  of  January  he  went  with  his  wife  to 
a  hydropatliic  establishment  at  Richmond.  "  I  have  little  sym- 
pathy myself,"  he  said,  "with  the  hydropatliic  superstition ;  but 
the  simple  diet  and  regular  hours  are  always  in  favor  of  health." 
As  it  happened  he  had,  besides  simple  diet  and  quiet  hours,  some- 

1  To  J.  Parkes,  Dec.  11,  1856. 


v 


436  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1857. 

thing  which  to  natures  such  as  his  is  the  most  favorable  of  all 
conditions  to  sound  health,  I  mean  the  excitement  of  vip-orous 
/       interest  in  a  great  public  cause. 

Certain  transactions  in  China  had  for  some  time  attracted  his 
vigilant  attention,  and  they  now  occupied  him  to  the  exclusion  of 
everything  else.  In  his  pamphlet  on  the  Second  Burmese  War 
Cobden  had  shown  the  danger  and  injustice  of  our  accepted  policy 
towards  the  weak  nations  of  the  East.  A  War  had  now  broken 
out  in  China  which  illustrated  the  same  principles  in  a  still  more 
striking  way.  Sir  John  Bowring,  the  Governor  of  Hong  Kong,  was 
an  old  friend  of  Cobden's,  a  member  of  the  Peace  Society,  and  one 
of  the  earliest  agitators  against  the  Corn  Law.  But  he  was  a  man 
without  pra  tical  judgment,  and  he  became  responsible  for  one  of 
the  worst  of  the  Chinese  wars.  The  Chinese  boarded  the  "Arrow," 
and  rescued  twelve  of  their  countrymen  from  it  on  a  charge  of 
piracy.  The  British  Consul  protested  on  the  ground  that  mal- 
feasants on  board  a  British  ship  should  not  be  seized,  but  should 
be  demanded  from  the  Consul.  Nine  men  were  returned  at  once. 
Bowring  sent  word  that  unless  the  whole  of  the  men  were  re- 
turned within  eight-and-forty  hours,  with  apologies  for  the  past 
and  pledges  for  the  future,  the  English  men-of-war  would  begin 
operations.  On  a  certain  day  the  whole  of  the  men  were  returned, 
with  a  protest  from  the  Chinese  governor  that  the  ship  was  not  a 
British  ship,  and  that  therefore  he  was  not  bound  to  demand  his 
malfeasants  from  the  Consul.  The  Chinese  governor  was  perfectly 
in  the  right,  Bowring's  contention  was  an  absolute  error  from 
beginning  to  end.^  The  "Arrow"  was  not  a  British  ship.  Its 
license  had  expired.  Even  if  this  had  not  been  so,  the  Hong 
Kong  agents  had  no  power  to  give  a  license  to  a  Chinese  ship- 
owner protecting  him  against  his  owm  government.  The  case 
stood  thus  then.  Bowring  had  made  a  claim  which  was  legally 
untenable.  The  Chinese  governor,  while  declaring  it  illegal,  ac^ 
quiesced  in  the  demand.  Yet  the  day  after  the  whole  of  the  men 
had  been  given  up,  naval  and  military  operations  were  begun,  a 
great  number  of  Chinese  junks  were  destroyed,  the  suburbs  of 
Canton  were  burnt  and  battered  down,  the  town  was  shelled,  and 
this  iniquitous  devastation  was  the  beginning  of  a  long  and 
costly  war. 

The  course  which  the  Government  at  home  ought  to  have  taken 
was  this.  Bowring  ought  to  have  been  recalled  ;  in  time  it  is  to 
be  hoped  that  public  opinion  will  insist  that  agents  who  are  guilty 
of  action  of  this  kind  shall  not  only  be  recalled,  but  shall  be  for- 

1  Mr.  Ashley's  account  of  this  transaction  {Life  of  Palmerston,  ii.  344),  is  too 
condensed  to  be  quite  accurate.  If  a  man  of  Mr.  Ashley's  industry  and  character 
is  not  careful  to  see  the  facts  of  such  cases  precisely  and  as  they  were,  we  cannot 
wonder  at  the  rough  and  ready  style  in  which  the  public  is  wont  to  take  the  un- 
sifted official  stories  for  granted,  whenever  a  British  agent  launches  his  country  into 
one  of  these  scandalous  wars. 


JET.  53.]  CHINESE   AFFAIRS.  437 

rnally  disgraced  and  explicitly  punished.  His  recall  would  have 
been  justified  even  by  the  opinion  of  that  day  or  of  this.  It  was 
not,  however,  to  be  expected  from  the  statesman  whose  politics 
never  got  beyond  Civis  i2(?wa?i?ts,  especially  when  he  was  dealing 
with  a  very  weak  Power.  The  Government  resolved  to  support  / 
Bowring.  xA.s  usual,  they  shifted  the  ground  from  the  particular 
to  the  general ;  if  the  Chinese  were  right  about  the  "Arrow,"  they 
were  wrong  about  something  else;  if  legality  did  not  exactly 
justify  violence,  it  was  at  any  rate  required  by  policy ;  orientals 
mistake  justice  for  fear;  and  so  on  through  the  string  of  well-worn 
sophisms,  which  are  always  pursued  in  connection  with  such 
affairs. 

To  Cobden,  as  we  may  suppose,  the  whole  transaction  seemed  / 
worthy  of  condemnation  on  every  ground.  Bowring's  demand  v. 
was  illegal,  and  ought  not  to  have  l3een  made.  If  this  was  doubt- 
ful, at  any  rate  Bowring's  violent  action  was  precipitate.  It  was 
a  resort  in  the  first  instance  to  measures  which  would  hardly 
have  been  justifiable  in  the  last  instance.  If  there  were  general 
grievances  against  the  Chinese,  why  not  make  joint  representa- 
tions with  France  and  the  United  States,  instead  of  stumbling 
into  a  quarrel  in  which  we  had  not  a  leg  to  stand  upon,  and 
beginning  a  war  for  which  in  the  opinion  of  our  best  lawyers 
there  was  no  proper  ground.^ 

The  chance  of  reversing  the  course  of  policy  depended  as  usual 
on  the  accidents  of  party  combination.  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Lind-  v 
say  written  in  the  last  month  of  1856,  Cobden  describes  the  state 
of  parties  at  that  time.  "  It  is  unlike,"  he  said,  "  everything  I 
have  witnessed  for  the  last  fifteen  years.  There  seems  to  be  no 
party  having  an  intelligible  principle  or  policy  in  which  any  con-  ., 
siderable  body  out  of  doors  takes  an  interest.  The  two  sides  of 
the  House  no  longer  represent  opposing  parties  —  unless,  indeed, 
it  may  be  said  that  our  leader  is  at  heart  an  aristocratic  Tory, 
while  the  chief  of  the  Opposition  is,  if  anything,  a  democratic 
Eadical.  Of  this  a  considerable  number  on  the  Tory  side  seem 
to  be  shrewdly  aware,  for  they  evince  no  desire  to  turn  out  Palm- 
erston,  in  whom  they  have  more  confidence  than  in  Disraeli." 
Under  these  circumstances,  however,  the  position  of  a  Minister 
must  always  be  precarious,  for  the  absence  of  definitely  antago- 
nistic policies  places  him  at  the  mercy  of  fortuitous  personal 
coalitions.    One   of  these   coalitions   came   into   existence   now. 

1  Lord  Elgin,  who  was  sent  out  to  carry  on  the  war,  says  in  his  diary  :  '*  I  have 
hardly  alluded  in  my  ultimatum  to  that  wretched  question  of  the  '  Arrow,'  which 
is  a  scandal  to  us,  and  is  so  considered,  I  have  reason  to  know,  by  all  except  the 
few  who  are  personally  compromised."  Letters  and  Journals,  p.  209.  "  It  is  im- 
possible to  read  the  blue-books,"  he  says  elsewhere,  "  without  feeling  that  we  have 
often  acted  towards  the  Chinese  in  a  manner  which  it  is  very  difficult  to  justify." 
(p.  185.)     See  also  pp.  191,  218,  &c.,  &c. 


V 


438  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1857. 

The  Peelites  were  only  following  the  tradition  of  their  master 
in  condemning  a  precipitate  and  useless  war.  Mr.  Disraeli 
and  his  friends  played  the  official  part  of  an  Opposition  in 
censuring  an  Administration.  Lord  John  Eussell  obeyed  an 
honest  instinct  for  justice.  All  these  sections  resolved  to  sup- 
port Cobden.  It  was  on  the  26th  of  February  that  Cobden 
brought  forward  a  motion  to  the  effect  that,  without  expressing  an 
opinion  on  the  causes  of  complaint  arising  from  non-fulfilment  of 
the  treaty  of  1842,  the  House  thought  the  late  violent  measures 
at  Canton  not  justified  by  the  papers,  and  that  a  Select  Com- 
mittee should  inquire  into  the  commercial  relations  with  China. 
This  enabled  him  to  cover  the  whole  ground  of  our  policy  in  that 
country.  He  did  so  in  one  of  the  most  masterly  of  his  speeclies  ; 
it  was  closely  argued,  full  of  matter,  without  an  accent  of  passion, 
unanswerable  on  the  special  case,  and  thoroughly  broad  and 
statesmanlike  in  general  views.^  The  House  was  profoundly  im- 
pressed. After  a  long  debate,  in  which  Lord  Palmerston  taunted 
Cobden  with  his  un-English  spirit,  and  wondered  how  he  could 
have  thought  of  attacking  an  old  friend  like  Bowring,  the  division 
was  taken.  There  was  a  majority  of  sixteen  against  the  Govern- 
ment. The  sixteen  would  have  been  sixty,  it  was  said,  if  Lord 
Derby's  party  had  held  together.  That  so  many  of  them  were 
found  on  Cobden's  side,  showed  that,  so  far  as  opinion  and  con- 
viction went,  the  minority  was  very  small  indeed.  But,  as  we 
are  always  seeing,  it  is  the  tendency  of  party  government  to  throw 
opinion  and  conviction  too  often  into  a  secondary  place.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone said  that  if  the  division  had  been  taken  immediately  after 
the  speeches  of  Cobden  and  Lord  John  Russell,  the  motion  would 
have  been  carried  by  a  majority  so  overwhelming  that  the  Minis- 
ter could  not  have  ventured  to  appeal -to  the  country  against  it. 
The  interval  allowed  the  old  party  considerations  to  resume  their 
usual  force.  As  it  was.  Lord  Palmerston  with  his  usual  acuteness 
and  courage  of  judgment  determined  to  dissolve  Parliament. 
Mr.  Bright  was  now  at  Rome.  "  I  need  not  tell  you,"  he  wrote 
to  Cobden,  "  how  greatly  pleased  I  was  with  the  news,  and  espe- 
cially that  the  blow  was  given  by  your  hand."  The  blow  was 
unhappily  to  be  returned  with  interest. 

The  country  had  not  long  been  engaged  in  the  heat  and  turmoil 
of  the  general  election,  before  Cobden  detected  ominous  signs. 
He  had  long  before  resolved  to  abandon  his  seat  for  the  West 
Riding.  It  was  too  plain  that  he  had  no  chance.  His  views  on 
education  alienated  one  section,  and  his  views  on  the  Russian 
War  had  alienated  all  sections.  It  w^as  thought  that  Hudders- 
field  was  the  borough  where  the  feeling  of  which  Mr.  Baines  was 
the  chief  exponent,  and  which  Cobden  had  offended,  was  least 

1  Speeches,  ii.  121-156. 


iET.53.]  COBDEN'S   MOTION.  — THE   DISSOLUTION.  439 

formidable.  So  to  Hudders field  he  went.  But  he  was  not  more 
active  for  himself,  than  he  was  on  behalf  of  his  absent  comrade. 
It  is  easy  to  explain  the  feeling  that  was  abroad.  Under  our 
system  there  is  little  tolerance  for  individual  dissent,  and  new 
principles  make  their  way  against  artificial  difficulties  of  desper- 
ate force.  People  said  that  Cobden  and  his  friends  had  shown 
themselves  perversely  independent  of  the  Minister.  They  had 
been  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  three  Liberal  Governments.  They 
had  been  openly  mutinous  under  Lord  John  Russell ;  they  had 
opposed  Lord  Aberdeen ;  they  had  violently  quarrelled  with  Lord 
Palmerston.  They  had  committed  the  unpardonable  offence  of 
leading  their  enemies  to  turn  out  their  friends.  All  this  was 
narrow,  undiscriminatint?,  and  ungenerous.  In  time  men  became 
ashamed  of  such  criticism,  but  for  the  hour  it  was  fatal.  Cob- 
den moved  the  vast  audiences  of  the  Free  Trade  Hall  to  its 
depths  by  an  eloquent  and  touching  vindication  of  Mr.  Bright, 
with  whom,  as  he  told  them,  he  had  lived  in  the  most  trans- 
parent intimacy  of  mind  that  two  human  beings  ever  enjoyed  to- 
gether. When  he  spoke  of  Mr.  Bright's  health,  —  "  impaired  in 
that  organ  which  excites  feelings  of  awe  and  of  the  utmost  com- 
miseration for  him  on  the  part  of  all  right-minded  men,"  —  his 
emotion  almost  overpowered  him,  and  shook  the  soul  of  his  hear- 
ers.^ But  the  practical  conclusion  was  foregone.  He  wrote  hasty 
notes  to  inform  Mrs.  Cobden  of  his  fears. 

"  Manchester,  March  17.  — I  hear  very  discouraging  accounts  of 
Bright  and  Gibson.  There  have  been  many  defections,  and  unless 
our  friends  are  giving  themselves  needless  alarm,  I  fear  the 
chances  are  greatly  against  us.  The  cause  chiefly  assigned  is  less 
an  alteration  of  opinion  than  a  feeling  of  resistance  towards  the 
ghost  of  the  League,  which  still  persists  in  haunting  Newall's 
Buildings,  and,  as  is  alleged,  dictates  to  Manchester.  I  was  al- 
ways of  opinion  that  it  would  have  been  much  better  to  have 
abolished  the  whole  concern  and  taken  up  new  quarters,  and  a 
new  name.  But  it  is  too  late  to  say  anything  about  it  now,  and, 
indeed,  the  less  said  the  better.  I  have  determined  to  go  to  Hud- 
dersfield.  I  attend  a  great  meeting  this  evening  in  the  Free  Trade 
Hall,  and  to-morrow  shall  proceed  to  Huddersfield." 

"  Huddersfield,  March  24.  —  I  am  dragged  about  all  the  day 
through  mud  and  mire  canvassing,  and  hardly  know  whether  I 
can  win.  I  don't  think  they  are  by  any  means  safe  at  Manchester. 
I  go  over  there  again  to-morrow,  to  attend  a  meeting  in  the  Free 
Trade  Hall." 

''March  25. — We  have  just  had  the  nomination.  I  was 
dragged  to  the  hustings  and  obliged  to  speak,  very  much  against 
my  inclination.     We  had  the  show  of  hands.     The  polling  is  to- 

1  See  SpeecJies,  ii.  74, 


440  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [185?. 

morrow.  Our  friends  are  in  better  spirits  every  hour,  but  I  am 
still  very  doubtful.  If  I  win,  I  will  telegraph  to  London,  and 
request  a  letter  to  be  sent  by  to-morrow's  post  to  you.  So  if  you 
do  not  hear  at  the  same  time  as  you  get  this,  conclude  that  I  have 
lost." 

No  telegram  was  sent,  for  Cobden  was  beaten.  A  Tory  had 
v  carried  the  borough  not  long  before,  and  now  the  combination  of 
Tories  with  Palmerstonian  Whigs  was  doubly  irresistible.  Cob- 
den only  polled  590  votes,  against  823  for  his  opponent.  At 
.  Manchester  Mr.  Gibson  and  Mr.  Bright  were  defeated,  and  the 
^  latter  of  them  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  poll.^  Fox  was  thrown 
out  at  Oldham,  and  Miall  at  Eochdale.  Lord  Palmerston's  vic- 
^  tory  was  complete,  and  the  Manchester  School  was  routed.  Noth- 
ing had  been  seen  like  it  since  the  disappearance  of  the  Peace 
Whigs  in  1812,  when  Brougham,  Eomiliy,  Tierney,  Lamb,  and 
Horner  all  lost  their  seats. 

Mr.  Bright  wrote  to  Cobden  from  Kome  during  the  elections. 
He  had,  he  said  sarcastically,  just  been  reading  Bulwer's  Eienzi, 
and  so  he  was  prepared  for  ignorance,  scurrility,  selfishness,  in- 
gratitude, and  all  the  other  unpleasant  qualities  that  every  honest 
politician  must  meet 'with.  When  the  news  of  the  great  reverse 
reached  him,  he  took  it  with  a  certain  composure.  He  put  the 
case  to  Cobden,  exactly  as  to  a  historical  observer  five-and-twenty 
years  later  it  would  seem  that  it  ought  to  have  been  put. 

*'  Venice,  April  16. 

"My  deae  Cobden,  —  I  have  been  intending  to  write  to  you 
from  day  to  day  since  I  received  your  letter.  It  was  most  refresh- 
ing to  me  to  read  it,  although  its  topics  were  not  of  the  most 
pleasing,  but  it  came  at  the  right  time,  and  it  said  the  right  thing, 

and  was  just  such  as  I  needed 

"  In  the  sudden  break-up  of  the  '  School'  of  which  we  have 
/    been  the  chief  professors,  we  may  learn  how  far  we  have  been, 
^     and  are,  ahead  of  the  public  opinion  of  our  time.     We  purpose 
not  to  make  a  trade  of  politics,  and  not  to  use  as  may  best  suit  us 
the  ignorance  and  the  prejudices  of  our  countrymen  for  our  own 
advantage,  but  rather  to  try  to  square  the  policy  of  the  country 
\y    with  the  maxims  of  common  sense  and  of  a  plain  morality.     The 
country  is  not  yet  ripe  for  this,  but  it  is  far  nearer  being  so  than  at 
any  former  period,  and  I  shall  not  despair  of  a  revolution  in  opin- 
^/  ion  which  shall  within  a  few  years  greatly  change  the  aspect  of 
^    affairs  with  reference  to  our  Foreign  policy.     During  the  com- 
paratively short  period  since  we  entered  public  life,  see  what  has 
been    done.      Through   our   labors   mainly  the  whole    creed   of 
millions  of  people,  and  of  the  statesmen  of  our  day,  has  been  to- 

1  Sir  J.  Potter,  8368  ;  Turner,  7854  ;  Gibson,  5588  ;  Bright,  5458. 


^T.  53.]  COBDEN'S   MOTION.  — THE  DISSOLUTION.  441 

tally  changed  on  all  the  questions  which  affect  commerce,  and 
customs  duties,  and  taxation.  They  now  agree  to  repudiate  as 
folly  what,  twenty  years  ago,  they  accepted  as  wisdom.  Look 
again  at  our  Colonial  polic3^  Through  the  labors  of  Moles  worth, 
Roebuck,  and  Hume,  more  recently  supported  by  us,  and  by  Glad- 
stone, every  article  in  the  creed  which  directed  our  Colonial 
policy  has  been  abandoned,  and  now  men  actually  abhor  the  ,. 
notion  of  undertaking  the  government  of  the  Colonies ;  on  the 
contrary,  they  give  to  every  Colony  that  asks  for  it  a  Constitution 
as  democratic  as  that  which  exists  in  the  United  States. 

"  Turn  to  the  question  of  Parliamentary  Reform.  *  Finality '  is 
stoutly  repudiated,  not  by  Lord  John  Russell  alone,  but  by  the 
Tories.  I  observe  that,  at  the  recent  elections,  Tories  have  re- 
peatedly admitted  that  there  must  be  Parliamentary  Reform,  and 
that  they  will  not  oppose  a  moderate  dose  of  it;  and  I  suppose 
something  before  long  will  be  done,  not  so  real  as  we  wish,  but 
something  that  will  make  things  move  a  little. 

"  But  if  on  Commercial  legislation,  on  Colonial  policy,  on  ques- 
tions of  Suffrage,  and  I  might  have  added  on  questions  of  Church, 
for  a  revolution  in  opinion  is  apparent  there  also,  we  see  this  re- 
markable change,  why  should  we  despair  of  bringing  about  an 
equally  great  change  in  the  sentiments  of  the  people  with  regard 
to  foreign  affairs  ?  Palmerston  and  his  press  are  at  the  bottom  of 
the  excitement  that  has  lately  prevailed ;  he  will  not  last  long  as 
Minister  or  as  man.  I  see  no  one  ready  to  accept  his  mantle 
when  it  drops  from  him.  Ten  years  hence,  those  who  live  so 
long  may  see  a  complete  change  on  the  questions  on  which  the 
public  mind  has  been  recently  so  active  and  so  much  mistaken. 

"  This'is  bringing  philosophy  to  comfort  us  in  our  misfortunes, 
you  will  say,  and  does  not  mend  the  present,  and  it  is  true  enough, 
but  it  is  just  the  line  of  reasoning,  I  doubt  not,  which  has  pre- 
sented itself  to  your  mind  when  free  from  the  momentary  vexa- 
tion caused  by  recent  events:  T  am  the  least  unfortunate  of  our 
small  section,  for  a  year  of  idleness  and  of  ill-health  has  made 
absence  from  Parliament  familiar  to  me,  and  I  have  contemplated 
resigning  my  seat  since  the  beginning  of  1856.  Personally,  there- 
fore, to  be  out  is  neither  strange  nor  unpleasant,  and  I  am  sur- 
prised how  very  little  I  hg,ve  cared  about  the  matter  on  my  own 
account.  I  hope  you  can  feel  somewhat  as  I  do,  conscious  that 
we  are  ostracized  because  our  political  creed  is  in  advance  of,  and 
our  political  morality  higher  than,  that  of  the  people  for  whom 
we  have  given  up  the  incessant  labors  of  nearly  twenty  years. 
Time  will  show,  and  a  long  time  will  not  be  needed  to  show,  the 
hollowness  of  the  imposture  which  now  rules.  Its  face  may  be 
of  brass,  but  its  feet  are  of  clay.  .... 

"  It  is  strange  after  so  much  experience  that  we  should  be  dis- 
appointed that  opinion  goes  on  so  slowly.     We  have  taught  what 


442  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1857. 

is  true  in  our  '  School/  but  the  discipline  was  a  little  too  severe 
for  the  scholars.  Disraeli  will  say  he  was  right :  we  are  hardly 
of  the  English  type,  and  success,  political  and  personal  success, 
cannot  afford  to  reject  the  use  which  may  be  made  of  ignorance 
and  prejudice  among  a  people.  This  is  his  doctrine,  and  with  his 
views  it  is  true ;  but  as  we  did  not  seek  personal  objects,  it  is  not 
true  of  us.  If  we  are  rejected  for  peace  and  for  truth,  we  stand 
higher  before  the  world  and  for  the  future  than  if  we  mingled 
with  the  patient  mediocrities  which  compose  the  present  Cab- 
inet  I  hope  the  clouds  may  break,  and  that  sunshine  may 

come  again.  Ever  yours  very  sincerely, 

*'  John  Bright." 

After  the  elections  were  over,  Cobden  went  to  his  home  in  Sus- 
sex, and  there  he  remained  in  retirement  for  nearly  two  years. 
His  correspondence  shows  how  sharply  he  felt  the  defeat. 

To  Mr.  Moffatt  he  writes  :  — 

"  Aj)ril  7.  —  I  find  a  retreat  to  this  drowsy  neighborhood  very 
necessary  for  my  health.  I  overdid  it,  in  trying  to  canvass  Hud- 
dersfield  and  Manchester  at  the  same  time,  and  was  almost  afraid 
my  head  was  giving  way.  However,  my  old  medicine,  sleep,  has 
nearly  restored  me.  But  I  am  determined  to  keep  out  of  the 
ring  for  the  present.  It  suits  me  on  private  and  domestic  grounds 
to  have  been  beaten  at  Huddersfield  (where  my  good  friends 
ought  not  to  have  taken  me),  and  although  the  dose  is  a  little 
nauseous,  the  medicine  will  ultimately  be  of  service  to  me.  But 
I  am  persecuted  with  innumerable  letters  from  kind  people,  who 
have  taken  up  the  notion  that  I  must  require  encouragement  and 
condolence.  And  they  have  all  sorts  of  projects  ready  "cut  and 
dry  for  me,  as  if  I  could  begin  a  life  of  agitation  again,  and  re- 
peat the  labors  of  my  prime  now  that  I  am  past  the  zenith. 

"  The  only  incident  of  the  election  which  hangs  about  me  with 
a  permanent  feeling  of  irritability,  "is  the  atrocious  treatment 
Bright  has  received  from  the  people  at  Manchester.  They  are 
mainly  indebted  to  him  for  the  prosperity  which  has  converted  a 
majority  into  little  better  than  Tories,  and  now  the  base  snobs 
kick  away  the  ladder  !  I  find  my  scorn  boiling  over  constantly, 
and  can  hardly  keep  my  hands,  or  rather  my  pen,  off  them.  The 
case  of  Gibson  is  different.  He  could  not  have  been  without  the 
expectation  that  some  day  an  end  would  be  put  to  a  connection 
for  which  there  was  no  special  fitness ;  and  to  have  sat  for 
nearly  eighteen  years  for  Manchester  has  given  him  a  position 
which  nothing  can  take  away.  I  do  not,  however,  think  he  de- 
served to  be  left  in  a  minority.  But  Briglit's  case  is  very  different. 
He  was  one  of  themselves.  You  know  how  valiantly  he  defended 
his  order  against  all  assailants.  He  was  an  honor  to  his  constit- 
uents.     They  had  no  grievance  on  account  of  his  peace  views, 


^T.53.]  COBDEN'S   MOTION.  — THE   DISSOLUTION.  443 

for  they  knew  he  was  a  Quaker  when  they  elected  him.  To 
place  such  a  man  at  the  bottom  of  the  poll,  when  prostrate  by 
excessive  labors  in  the  public  service,  is  the  most  atrocious  speci- 
men of  political  ingratitude  I  ever  encountered I  do  not 

believe  he  will  be  affected  in  the  way  you  fear  by  the  news.  He 
will,  I  believe,  take  it  very  coolly  and  philosophically  ;  and  I  think 
it  will  prove  probably  the  best  thing  that  could  have  happened  for 
his  health." 

On  the  same  day  he  writes  to  Mr.  Hargreaves  :  —  "  The  secret 
of  such  a  display  of  snobbishness  and  ingratitude  is  in  the  great 
prosperity  which  Lancashire  enjoys,  and  for  which  it  is  mainly  in- 
debted to  Bright ;  and  the  result  has  been  to  make  a  large  increase 
to  the  number  of  Tories,  and  to  cool  down  to  a  genteel  tone  the 
politics  of  the  Whigs,  until  at  last  the  majority  find  an  earnest 
Eadical  not  sufficiently  genteel  for  their  taste.  This  will  go  on  in 
the  north  of  England  so  long  as  our  exports  continue  to  increase  at 
their  present  rate,  and  in  the  natural  course  of  things  more  Tories 
will  be  returned." 

The  same  humor  finds  vent  in  some  words  to  Mr.  W.  S.  Lindsay 
of  this  date  :  — 

"  Did  my  friend  make  a  failure  of  seconding  the  Address  ? 

I  hear  so.  I  have  never  known  a  manufacturing  representa- 
tive put  into  cocked  hat  and  breeches  and  ruffles,  with  a  sword  by 
his  side,  to  make  a  speech  for  the  Government,  without  having 
his  head  turned  by  the  feathers  and  frippery.  Generally  they 
give  way  to  a  paroxysm  of  snobbery,  and  go  down  on  their  bellies, 
and  throw  dust  on  their  heads,  and  fling  dirt  at  the  prominent  men 
of  their  own  order." 

At  the  end  of  July  a  vacancy  was  made  in  the  representation 
of  Birmingham  by  the  death  of  Mr.  Muntz,  and  Mr.  Bright  was 
quickly  chosen  to  fill  the  seat.  His  health  seemed  to  have  been 
so  dangerously  shaken,  that  Cobden  expressed  a  natural  solicitude 
on  so  speedy  a  return  to  the  agitation  of  public  life.  To  Mr. 
Parkes  he  wrote  :  — 

"  August  9,  1857.  —  I  cannot  help  confessing  to  you  my  doubts 
whether  Bright  will  be  equal  to  the  task  wliich  he  seems  bent 
upon  undertaking  without  much  more  forbearance.  If  he  break 
down  again,  the  chances  are  that  he  is  shelved  for  life,  and  may  lose 
even  the  powers  which  he  is  now  in  secure  possession  of.  I  very 
much  fear  he  allows  himself  to  be  pushed  forward  by  others  who 
are  interested,  from  enjoying  a  reflected  share  of  his  greatness,  in 
seeing  him  again  in  the  House.  But  I  have  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  this  is  the  case  with  his  wife  and  family.  I  have  said  as 
much  as  I  could  to  urge  him  to  be  quiet,  but  I  doubt  whether  he 
has  the  powsr  to  divert  his  mind  from  politics.  He  seemed  to  me 
to  be  watching  or  speculating  on  the  details  of  political  movements 
whilst  he  was  in  Algiers  or  Italy,  pretty  much  the  same  as  when 


V 


4:44.  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1857. 

he  was  at  home.  The  honest  and  independent  course  taken  hy 
the  people  at  Birmingham,  their  exemption  from  aristocratic  snob- 
bery, and  their  fair  appreciation  of  a  democratic  son  of  the  people, 
confirm  me  in  the  opinion  I  have  always  had  that  the  social  and 
political  state  of  that  town  is  far  more  healthy  than  that  of  Man- 
chester ;  and  it  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  industry  of  the  hard- 
j  ware  district  is  carried  on  by  small  manufacturers,  employing  a  few 
men  and  boys  each,  sometimes  only  an  apprentice  or  two ;  whilst 
the  great  capitalists  in  Manchester  form  an  aristocracy,  individual 
members  of  which  wield  an  influence  over  sometimes  two  thousand 
^  persons.  The  former  state  of  society  is  more  natural  and  healthy 
in  a  moral  and  political  sense.  There  is  a  freer  intercourse  be- 
tween all  classes  than  in  the  Lancashire  town,  where  a  great  and 
impassable  gulf  separates  the  workman  from  his  employer.  The 
great  capitalist  class  formed  an  excellent  basis  for  the  Anti-Corn- 
Law  movement,  for  they  had  inexhaustible  purses,  which  they 
opened  freely  in  a  contest  where  not  only  their  pecuniary  interests 
but  their  pride  as  '  an  order '  was  at  stake.  But  I  very  much 
doubt  whether  such  a  state  of  society  is  favorable  to  a  democratic 
political  movement,  and  this  view  I  have  urged  upon  "Wilson  and 
Bright  ever  since  the  League  was,  or  ought  to  have  been,  abolished. 
If  Bright  should  recover  his  health  and  be  able  to  head  a  party 
for  parliamentary  reform,,  in  my  opinion  Birmingham  will  be  a 
better  home  for  him  than  Manchester. 

"  Charles  Sumner  has  been  here,  and  is  now  on  his  way  to  see 
De  Tocqueville.  We  had  some  very  long  adjourned  debates,  as 
you  may  suppose.  What  a  talker  he  is  1  One  night,  or  rather 
morning,  I  had  to  warn  him  to  bed  at  half-past  one,  which  to  us 
rustics  is  a  late  sitting,  for  at  this  harvest-time  folks  are  thinking 
of  getting  up  to  work  soon  after  that.  But  excepting  for  his  own 
health's  sake  I  would  have  gladly  protracted  our  nodes  to  daylight. 
It  is  refreshing  to  meet  with  a  man  of  his  intellectual  calibre  and 
of  such  accomplishments,  one  too  so  capable  in  every  way  of  play- 
ing a  politician's  part,  giving  up  all  to  conscience.  I  really  hardly 
know  such  a  case.  We  can't  put  ourselves  in  such  a  comparison, 
for  we  have  not  the  same  temptations  even  had  we  his  powers. 
For  in  this  aristocratic  country  we  know  that  the  chief  seats  must 
be  occupied  by  men  of  a  given  class,  or  their  nominees.  In  his 
country  every  post  was  accessible  to  him,  if  he  could  only  speak 
successfully  to  Bunkum." 

"  July  28.  (To  Mr.  Parkes)  — Very  many  thanks  for  your  think- 
ing of  me  sometimes.  I  am  deep  in  mangolds  and  pigs,  and  unless 
you  brought  me  occasionally  in  contact  with  the  great  maelstrom 
of  politics,  I  should  be  in  danger  of  forgetting  that  there  are  such 
things  as  Whigs  and  Tories  in  the  world.  Believe  me,  I  am  in 
no  hurry  to  get  back  to  the  House.  When  I  saw  the  other  day 
that  the  House   sat  till  half-past  four,  I  hugged  myself,  and 


iET.53.]  COBDEN'S   MOTION.— THE   DISSOLUTION.  445 

looked  out  on  the  South  Downs  with  a  keener  relish.  The  tone 
of  Parliament  is  unlike  anything  I  have  ever  witnessed,  and  I 
should  not  like  to  be  made  more  closely  acquainted  with  it. 
There  is  a  spirit  of  servility,  which  cannot  last ;  for  a  really  manly 
assembly  (which  the  House  of  Commons  is)  will  recover  its  self- 
respect,  and  the  reaction  will  perhaps  be  all  the  stronger  from  the 
consciousness  which  will  one  day  tiash  upon  it  that  it  has  been 
prostrating  itself  before  a  brazen  image,  as  hollow  as  it  is  impu- 
dent. But  I  am  content  to  wait.  It  is  true  that  Sumner  has 
offered  to  come  and  see  me,  and  if  he  would  stay  a  few  days  it 
would  be  well  for  his  health,  but  I  expect  he  will  linger  in  town 
till  he  has  only  a  day  to  give  me.  I  went  on  Friday  to  dine  at 
the  Bishop  of  Oxford's  to  meet  Lord  Aberdeen,  and  slept  there. 
The  old  Earl  was  looking  older  and  more  taciturn  than  usual. 
His  clothes  looked  too  large  for  his  frame.  I  should  fear  he  is 
wasting  away,  but  his  northern  air,  I  hope,  will  set  him  up  again. 
It  is  the  third  year  I  have  had  a  long  tete-a-tete  with  him,  and  I 
have  always  found  myself  much  interested  in  a  thoroughly  quiet 
and  homely  intercourse  with  him  and  his  host 

"  In  answer  to  your  friend's  inquiry  about  Bowring's  truthful- 
ness, you  may  content  yourself  with  a  general  description  of  the 
genus  sentimentalist.  They  are  not  to  be  depended  on  in  political 
action,  because  they  are  not  masters  of  their  own  reasoning 
powers.  They  sing  songs  or  declaim  about  truth,  justice,  liberty, 
and  the  like,  but  it  is  only  in  the  same  artificial  spirit  in  which 
they  make  odes  to  dewdrops,  daisies,  &c.  They  are  just  as  likely 
to  trample  on  one  as  the  other,  notwithstanding.  There  was 
Lamartine,  the  prince  of  the  class,  who  mouthed  so  finely  about 
international  rights ;  and  yet  it  has  come  out  that  he  was  just  as 
ready  as  king  or  kaiser  to  march  an  army  into  Italy  to  take  a 
material  guaranty  for  —  liberty.  See  the  exhibition  of  Thackeray 
at  Oxford,!  and  yet  he  expressed  sympathy  to  me  and  Bright  at 
the  Eeform  Club  during  the  war.  Then  there  is  his  great  con- 
trast, Dickens,  forever  writing  of  his  desire  to  elevate  the  masses 
and  to  put  down  insolence  in  high  places.  I  saw  a  note  from  him 
in  which  he  refused  to  sign  a  petition  for  the  repeal  of  the  taxes 
on  knowledge,  on  the  express  ground  that  he  would  not  promote 
a  deluge  of  printer's  ink  in  England  similar  to  what  he  had  seen 
in  America.  The  most  reliable  politicians  are  your  wiry  logicians 
of  the  Jefferson  or  Calhoun  stamp.  They  may  be  liable  to  false 
starts,  but  when  once  you  know  their  premises  you  can  calculate 
their  course  and  where  to  find  them." 

"  Midhurst,  June  6.  (To  Mr.  Ewart.)  —  I  must  confess  the 
proceedings  of  your  Hon.  House  have  done  much  to  reconcile  me 

^  At  a  bye-election  for  Oxford  city  (July  21)  Mr.  Thackeray  stood  against  the 
present  Lord  Card  well,  and  failed  by  the  narrow  difference  of  67,  in  a  gross  poll  of 
2103. 


446  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1857. 

to  my  rustication,  for  its  tone  is  subservient  even  to  sycophancy. 
We  have  had  the  *  Bareboues  Parliament/  the  '  Long  Parliament,' 
the  '  Unlearned  Parliament,'  but  the  pres^ent  ought  to  be  named 
the  '  Servile  Parliament.'  From  such  an  assembly  I  confess  I  am 
not  sorry  to  be  excluded.  There  has  always  been  until  now  a 
•  body  of  men,  sometimes  more  and  sometimes  fewer  in  the  House, 
who  counted  themselves  for  something  better  than  Whigs  or 
Tories,  and  who  were  bent  on  securing  something  for  the  public 
as  the  price  of  their  support  of  the  more  Liberal  section  of  the 
aristocracy.  These  men,  whether  numbering  thirty  or  eighty, 
were  the  pioneers  of  every  good  work.  As  a  party  they  seem  no 
longer  to  have  an  existence  in  this  Parliament.  When  they  re- 
appear, and  the  public  liave  recovered  their  taste  for  earnest 
politics,  I  hope  1  shall  be  of  their  number;  but  till  then  the 
House  of  Commons  would  not  suit  me,  or  I  suit  it." 

"Dec.  3.  (To  Mr.  Moffatt)  —  It  is  very  kind  and  friendly  in 
you,  as  usual,  to  think  of  me.  This  post  has  also  brought  a  letter 
from  Lancashire,  saying  some  of  the  leaders  at  Ashton  would  wish 
me  to  succeed  to  poor  Hindley.  But  I  have  resolved  neither 
to  stand  nor  sit  for  any  place ;  and  this  resolution  will  certainly 
be  adhered  to  for  a  year,  probably  for  the  rest  of  my  working 
days.  I  am  not  sulking  or  shamming,  but  ac  in  4"  from  motives  of 
a  personal  nature,  and  which  no  political  c>  ns^derations  will  be 
sufficiently  powerful  to  overcome.  If  half  a  dozen  constituencies 
were  to  offer  to  return  me  free  of  expense  I  should  decline  them 
all.  I  shall  be  glad,  should  you  at  any  time  hear  of  any  move- 
ment in  my  favor,  if  you  will  discourage  it,  without  giving  me 
occasion  to  offer  explanations  which  are  painful  to  me.  The 
truth  is,  I  cannot  leave  home  for  forty-eight  hours,  and  preserve 
that  tranquillity  and  elasticity  of  spirit  which  is  necessary  to 
success  in  public  life.  Under  the  circumstances,  I  am  therefore 
useless  anywhere  but  in  my  family.  There  might  have  been  a 
state  of  things,  indeed  there  has  been,  when  I  sacrificed  every 
domestic  consideration  for  public  duty ;  but  there  is  now  no  mo- 
tive or  justification  for  my  doing  so." 

The  actual  life  of  the  House  of  Commons,  which  has  invincible 
^/  attractions  for  so  many  men,  seems  to  have  had  no  particular 
charm  to  Cobden.  At  the  beginning  of  the  session  of  1857  he 
described  to  a  friend  the  disagreeable  effect  upon  him  of  bad  air 
and  long  speeches.  "  I  don't  know  whether  you  feel  yourself 
similarly  affected  by  the  air  of  the  House,  but  after  sitting  there 
for  two  or  three  hours  I  find  my  head  useless  for  any  other  purpose 
but  aching.  I  find  my  brain  throbbing,  as  though  it  were  ready 
to  burst ;  and  the  pain  returns  upon  me  as  soon  as  I  awake  in  the 
morning.  It  seems  as  if  the  air  were  dried  and  cooked  to  such 
an  extent  as  to  rob  it  of  its  vital  properties.  My  reasoning 
powers  are  in  abeyance  while  under  the  roof  of  the  House,  and 


iEi.  53.]  THE   INDIAN   MUTINY.  447 

if  the  symptoms  continue  and  no  remedy  be  called  for  by  others, 
likely  to.  effect  a  change,  I  shall  seriously  consider  whether  I  ought 
to  continue  to  hold  a  trust  wliich  I  am  rendered  physically  and 
mentally  incapable  of  fulfilling." 

"  I  came  away  on  Tuesday,"  he  continues,  "  after  listening  for 
two  hours  and  a  half  to  Disraeli.  I  wish  there  could  be  some^^ 
Bessemer's  power  invented  for  shortening  the  time  of  speaking  in 
the  House.  My  belief,  after  a  long  experience,  is  that  a  man  may 
say  all  that  he  ought  to  utter  at  one  '  standing '  in  an  hour,  ex- 
cepting a  budget  speech  or  a  government  explanation,  when 
documents  are  read.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  may  be  read  in 
twenty  minutes  ;  the  Lord's  Prayer  takes  one  minute  to  repeat ; 
Franklin  and  Washington  never  spoke  more  than  ten  minutes  at 
a  time." 

In  the  autumn  of  1857  there  was  some  prospect  of  a  vacancy  ' 
for  the  borough  of  Finsbury,  and  a  movement  was  started  in  favor 
of  Cobden  as  a  candidate.  Nothing  came  of  it,  and  it  is  doubt- 
ful, as  we  shall  presently  see,  whether  at  that  moment  his  private 
interests  would  have  allowed  him  to  return  to  public  life.  In  the 
beginning  of  1858  he  received  one  of  the  pleasantest  of  social 
compliments,  in  his  election  as  a  member  of  the  Athenaeum  Club 
by  the.  special  favor  of  the  Committee.  In  the  course  of  the 
same  year  his  brother,  Frederick,  died  at  Dunford.  He  had 
suffered  such  excruciating  torture  for  some  time  past  that  to 
himself  death  was  almost  welcome,  but  Cobden  may  well  have 
felt  a  sharp  pang  at  the  loss  of  one  to  whom  he  had  been  all  his 
life  bound  by  the  ties  of  so  affectionate  an  intimacy. 


CHAPTEK   XXVII. 

THE  INDIAN   MUTINY  —  PRIVATE  AFFAIRS  —  SECOND  JOURNEY 
TO   AMERICA. 

The  elections  had  barely  taken  place  before  the  country  was 
thrilled  from  end  to  end  as  it  had  been  on  no  occasion  before,  by  y 
the  appalling  horrors  of  the  Indian  Mutiny.  Cobden  had  always 
watched  the  affairs  of  this  great  dependency  with  jealous  and 
unfriendly  eye.  As  a  military  and  despotic  government ;  as  an 
acquisition  of  impolitic  violence  and  fraud ;  as  the  seat  of  unsafe 
finance ;  for  these  and  other  reasons,  he  had  always  taken  his 
place  among  those,  and  they  were  nmcli  fewer  then  than  they  are 
now,  who  cannot  see  any  advantage  either  to  the  natives  or  their 
foreign  masters  in  this  vast  possession.  He  had  said  as  much  in 
the  House  of  Commons  so  far  back  as  1853,  when  the  renewal  of 


/ 


448  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1857. 

the  Company's  Charter  was  under  discussion.  When  the  Mutiny- 
came,  then,  like  every  one  else,  he  said  he  could  think  of  nothing 
else.  Three  or  four  of  his  letters  will  be  enough  to  show  what 
he  had  to  say  upon  the  most  hideous  occurrence  in  our  history. 

"Midhurst,  Oct.  16,  1857.  {To  Mr.  Ashtvorth.) —  1  thought  I 
could  have  withdrawn  myself  for  a  time  from  public  affairs,  but 
every  Indian  mail  quite  overturns  my  resolution,  and  weans  me 
back  from  my  farm  and  my  household,  and  makes  me  as  much  a 
politician  in  thought  and  feeling  as  ever.  And  yet  I  confess  to 
you  that  this  crisis  in  the  East  makes  me  very  grateful  for  the 
accident  which  released  me  from  my  Parliamentary  duties,  aud 
thereby  relieved  me  from  the  necessity  of  making  any  public 
declaration  of  opinion  on  the  subject ;  for  the  more  I  reflect  on 
it,  the  less  do  I  feel  able  to  take  any  part  which  would  harmonize 
with  the  views  and  prejudices  of  the  British  public. 

"I  am,  and  always  have  been,  of  opinion  (see  the  enclosed 
extract  from  Hansard)  that  we  have  attempted  an  impossibility 
/  in  giving  ourselves  to  the  task  of  governing  one  hundred  millions 
of  Asiatics.  God  and  his  visible,  natural  laws  have  opposed  in- 
superable obstacles  to  the  success  of  such  a  scheme.  But  if  the 
plan  were  practicable  at  the  great  cost  and  risk  which  we  now  see 
to  be  inseparable  from  it,  what  advantage  can  it  confer  on  our- 
selves ?  We  all  know  the  motive  which  took  the  East  India 
Company  to  Asia  —  monopoly,  not  merely  as  towards  foreigners, 
but  against  the  rest  of  their  own  countrymen.  But  now  that  the 
trade  of  Hindostan  is  thrown  open  to  all  the  world  on  equal 
terms,  what  exclusive  advantage  can  we  derive  to  compensate  for 
all  the  trouble,  cost,  and  risk  of  ruling  over  such  a  people  ?  —  a 
people  which  has  shown  itself,  after  a  century  of  contact  with  us, 
to  be  capable  of  crimes  which  would  revolt  any  savage  tribe  of 
whom  we  read  in  Dr.  Livingstone's  narrative,  and  which  had 
never  seen  a  Christian  or  European  till  he  penetrated  among 
them. 

"  The  religious  people  who  now  tell  us  that  we  must  hold  India 
to  convert  it,  ought,  I  should  think,  to  be  convinced  by  what  has 
passed  that  sending  red  coats  as  well  as  black  to  Christianize  a 
people  is  not  the  most  likely  way  to  insure  the  blessing  of  God 
on  our  missionary  efforts. 

"  I  am  aware  that  it  is  quite  useless  to  preach  these  doctrines 
in  the  present  temper  of  the  people  of  this  country ;  but  if  forced 
to  appear  in  public  to  offer  my  opinion  on  the  topics  of  the  day, 
I  could  not  ignore  this  greatest  of  all  texts,  and  therefore  I  cling 
to  my  shell  here  because  I  know  that  this  is  not  the  moment  to 
give  utterance  to  my  ideas  with  any  chance  of  doing  good. 

"  Unfortunately  for  me  I  can't  even  co-operate  with  those  who 
seek  to  '  reform '  India,  for  I  have  no  faith  in  the  power  of  England 
to  govern  that  country  at  all  permanently  ;  and  though  I  should 


J 


iET.53.]  THE  INDIAN  MUTINY.  .449 

like  to  see  the  Company  abolished  —  because  that  is  a  screen 
between  the  English  nation  and  a  full  sight  of  its  awful  responsi- 
bilities—  yet  I  do  not  believe  in  the  possibility  of  the  Crown 
governing  India  under  the  control  of  Parliament.  If  the  House 
of  Commons  were  to  renounce  all  responsibility  for  domestic  legis- 
lation, and  give  itself  exclusively  to  the  task  of  governing  one 
hundred  millions  of  Asiatics,  it  would  fail.  Hindostan  must  be 
ruled  by  those  who  live  on  that  side  of  the  globe.  Its  people  will 
prefer  to  be  ruled  badly  —  according  to  our  notions  —  by  its  own 
color,  kith  and  kin,  than  to  submit  to  the  humiliation  of  being 
better  governed  by  a  succession  of  transient  intruders  from  the 
antipodes. 

"  These,  however,  are,  T  confess,  opinions  of  a  somewhat  abstract 
kind,  and  not  adapted  for  the  practical  work  of  the  day.  What 
is  to  be  done  now  ?  Put  down  the  military  revolt  in  justice  to 
the  peaceable  population,  who  are  at  the  mercy  of  the  armed 
mutineers.  It  is  our  duty  to  do  so.  We  can  do  it,  and  I  have 
no  doubt  it  will  be  done.  But  then  comes  our  difficulty.  With 
the  experience  of  the  'present  year  we  can  never  trust  a  native 
force  with  arms  again,  with  the  feelings  of  security  which  we 
formerly  indulged.  Who  will  live  in  the  interior  of  India,  in 
future,  beyond  the  range  of  our  forts  or  the  sound  of  the  regimen- 
tal drum  ?  Certainly  no  one  with  wife  and  children  to  love  and 
care  for.  Yet  we  cannot  possibly  administer  the  affairs  of  that 
country  without  a  native  force,  and  we  are  now  actually  raising 
an  army  of  Sikhs,  the  most  warlike  of  our  subjects  in  all  Asia, 
whom  we  disarmed  when  we  took  possession  of  the  country,  and 
of  whom  Lord  Dalhousie  said,  in  a  letter,  not  ten  years  ago,  that 
every  man  was  against  us ! 

"  No ;  there  is  no  future  but.  trouble  and  loss  and  disappoint- 
ment and,  I  fear,  crime  in  India,  and  they  are  doing  the  people  of 
this  country  the  greatest  service  who  tell  them  the  honest  truth 
according  to  their  convictions,  and  prepare  them  for  abandoning 
at  some  future  time  the  thankless  and  impossible  task." 

"  August  24.  {To  Mr.  Bright.)  —  If  we  could  meet,  I  should 
be  glad  to  have  a  whole  week's  adjourned  debates  on  public 
matters  with  you;  and  I  could  write  you  long  letters  too,  but 
somehow  I  always  feel  myself  restrained  by  the  fear  that  my 
correspondence  does  you  harm  by  keeping  the  brain  needlessly 
on  the  old  scent.  I  wish  you  to  discard  politics  from  your 
thoughts ;  how  then  can  I  with  consistency  dose  you  with  my 
political  speculations  ?  Besides,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  I  can  find 
nothing  very  cheerful  to  remark  upon  in  relation  to  public  matters. 
The  proceedings  of  the  House  have  ceased  to  interest  me ;  and 
when  I  glance  at  the  conclusion  of  the  reports,  and  sometimes 
read  '  adjourned  at  a  quarter  to  three  o'clock,'  I  hug  myself  with 

29 


v^ 


4:50  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  £1857. 

delight  at  the  recollection  that  I  am  not  one  of  the  dramatis 
personce  of  the  humiliating  performance. 

"  The  only  subject  that  binds  my  attention  fast  to  the  news- 
papers is  this  horrible  Indian  business.  There  has  been  nothing 
in  history  since  the  St.  Domingo  revolt  to  compare  in  fiendish 
ferocity  with  the  atrocities  by  the  Sepoys  upon  the  women  and 
children  who  have  fallen  into  their  hands.  One  stands  aghast 
and  dumfoundered  at  the  reflection  that,  after  a  century  of  inter- 
course with  us,  the  natives  of  India  suddenly  exhibit  themselves 
greater  savages  than  any  of  the  North  American  Indians  who 
have  been  brought  into  contact  with  the  white  race.  It  is  clear 
that  they  cannot  have  been  inspired  with  either  love  or  respect 
by  what  they  have  seen  of  the  English.  There  must  be  a  fierce 
spirit  of  resentment,  not  unmixed  with  contempt  for  the  ruling 
class,  pervading  the  native  mind.  From  the  moment  that  I 
had  satisfied  myself  that  a  feeling  of  alienation  was  constantly 
increasing  with  both  the  natives  and  the  English  (we  had  some 
striking  evidence  to  this  effect  before  our  Committee  in  1853), 
I  made  up  my  mind  that  it  must  end  in  ^trouble  sooner  or  later. 
It  is  impossible  that  a  people  can  permanently  be  used  for  their 
own  obvious  and  conscious  degradation.  The  entire  scheme  of 
our  Indian  rule  is  based  upon  the  assumption  that  the  natives 
will  be  the  willing  instruments  of  their  own  humiliation.  Nay, 
so  confident  are  we  in  this  faith,  that  we  offer  them  the  light  of 
Christianity  and  a  free  press,  and  still  believe  that  they  will  not 
have  wit  enough  to  measure  their  rights  by  our  own  standard. 

"Chance  has  thrown  me  in  the  society  of  some  ladies  who 
have  lately  returned  from  India,  where  they  were  accustomed  to 
barrack  life,  their  husbands  being  officers  in  native  regiments.  I 
find  the  common  epithet  applied  to  our  fellow-subjects  in  Hin- 
dostan  is  nigger.  One  of  these  ladies  took  some  credit  for  her  con- 
descension in  allowing  a  native  officer,  answering  to  the  rank  of  a 
subaltern,  to  sit  down  in  her  presence  when  he  came  for  orders  to 
her  husband.  All  this  might  have  been  borne,  though  with  diffi- 
culty, if  the  English  with  whom  the  natives  came  in  contact  dis- 
played exalted  virtues  and  high  intellectual  powers.  But  I  fear 
the  traits  most  conspicuous  in  our  countrymen  have  been  of  a 
very  different  character.  A  low  morale  and  an  absence  of  men- 
tal energy  have  been  the  most  conspicuous  faults  of  the  British 
officers,  and  the  business  of  the  regiments  has  more  and  more  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  the  natives.  What  is  now  witnessed  in  India — 
the  assassination  and  massacres  on  one  side,  and  the  wholesale 
executions  on  the  other  —  must  forever  perpetuate  and  deepen 
this  feeling  of  alienation.^ 

1  Almost  on  the  very  same  day  Lord  Elgin  wrote  in  his  Journal:  —  **  It  is  a  terri- 
ble business,  this  living  among  inferior  races.     1  have  seldom  from  man  or  woman 


^T.53.]  THE  INDIAN  MUTINY.  451 

"  I  can  see  nothing  but  increased  difficulties  in  future  in  conse- 
quence of  the  almost  indiscriminate  slaughter  with  which  every 
commissioned  officer  and  his  drum-head  court  are  visiting  the 
Sepoys  that  fall  into  their  power.  Unless  this  is  persevered  in 
until  the  100,000  mutineers  are  hung  up,  the  only  effect  will  be 
to  convert  those  who  escape  into  worse  assassins  and  incendiaries 
than  before.  How  are  we  to  maintain  despotic  sway  in  future 
over  100,000,000  of  Asiatics  (for  it  must  be  undisguised  despotism  ^/ 
henceforth)  and  preserve  our  own  freedom  at  home  ?  Will  it  be 
possible  to  find  a  sufficient  number  of  recruits  in  England  to  keep 
up  a  sufficient  army  for  this  purpose  ? 

"  These  are  questions  that  I  shall  not  answer  at  present,  but  I 
confess  to  you  that  I  have  no  faith  in  the  doctrine  that  by  anyv^ 
possible  reforms  we  can  govern  India  well,  or  continue  to  hold  it 
permanently.  God  and  nature  have  put  a  visible  and  insuperable 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  our  rash  and  audacious  scheme.  And  if  it 
be  true,  as  even  Voltaire  believed  it  to  be,  that  there  is  '  un  Dieu 
rdtributeur  et  vengeur,'  the  deeds  perpetrated  by  the  British  in 
times  past,  and  still  more  the  bloody  deeds  now  being  enacted, 
and  which  all  arise  from  our  own  original  aggression  upon  distant 
and  unoffending  communities,  will  be  visited  with  unerring  jus- 
tice upon  us  or  our  children.  But  I  am  sinning  against  my  own 
rule  in  thus  venting  my  croakings  upon  you 

"  P.  S.  You  hint  at  the  possibility  of  Manchester  taking  me  in 
case  of  poor  Potter's  death.  I  don't  think  the  offer  will  ever  be 
made,  but  I  am  quite  sure  that  there  is  no  demonstration  of  the 
kind  that  would  induce  me  (apart  from  my  determination  not  at 
present  to  stand  for  any  place)  to  put  myself  in  the  hands  of  the 
people  who  without  more  cause  then  than  now  struck  down  men 
whose  politics  are  identically  my  own.  To  confess  my  honest 
belief,  I  regard  the  Manchester  constituency,  now  that  their  gross 
pocket  question  is  settled,  as  a  very  unsound,  and  to  us  a  very 
unsafe  body." 

"  September  22.  (  „  )  —  I  am  glad  to  see  your  handwriting 
again.  Although  I  knew  our  minds  were  busy  in  one  and  the 
same  direction,  yet  I  abstained  from  sending  you  my  cogitations, 
for  I  was  fearful  of  adding  fuel  to  fire.  These  Indian  horrors  give 
me  a  perpetual  shudder.  The  awful  atrocities  perpetrated  upon 
women  and  children  almost  give  rise  to  the  impious  doubt  whether 
this  world  is  under  the  government  of  an  all-wise  and  just  Provi- 
dence. What  crime  had  they  committed  to  merit  the  infliction 
of  tortures  and  death  ?     Verily  the  sins  of  the  fathers  have  been 

since  I  came  to  the  East  heard  a  sentence  which  was  reconcilable  with  the  hypothe- 
sis that  Christianity  had  ever  come  into  the  world.  Detestation,  contempt,  ferocity, 
vengeance,  whether  Chinamen  or  Indians  he  the  object."  — Lord  Elgin's  Journals^ 
p.  199.  (August  21,  1857.)  On  March  29,  1868,  there  is  a  similar  entry:—  ♦_'  The 
truth  is  that  the  whole  world  just  now  are  raving  mad  with  a  passion  for  killing 
«id  slaving." 


452  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1857. 

visited  on  the  children  to  the  third  and  fourth  generations  !  And 
how  can  it  be  otherwise  in  the  case  of  a  nation  ?  For  if  a  collect- 
ive crime  be  perpetrated,  and  a  community  be  visited  with  retribu- 
tive justice,  even  an  hour  after  the  commission  of  the  deed,  those 
who  have  entered  life  in  the  interval  must  participate  in  the  pen- 
alty.    We  can  see  that  it  must  be  so,  but  not  that  it  ought  to  be. 

"These  fiendish  outrages  upon  the  defenceless  —  the  propen- 
sity displayed  in  so  many  places  to  unparalleled  cruelties  —  have 
amazed  me  more  than  anything  that  ever'  occurred  in  my  time. 
We  have  read  of  something  of  the  kind  in  St.  Domingo,  in  the 
French  Eevolution,  and  in  the  revolt  of  the  Polish  peasants,  but  in 
our  time  nothing  like  it  has  happened,  and  I  would  not  have  be- 
lieved that  any  tribe  of  men  which  had  been  in  contact  with  civ- 
ilized life  could  have  committed  such  barbarities.  But  we  seem  in 
danger  of  forgetting  our  own  Christianity,  and  descending  to  a  level 
with  these  monsters  who  have  startled  the  world  with  their  deeds. 
It  is  terrible  to  see  our  middle-class  journals  and  speakers  calling 
for  the  destruction  of  Delhi  and  the  indiscriminate  massacre  of 
prisoners.  Leaving  humanity  out  of  the  question,  nothing  could 
have  been  more  impolitic  than  the  wholesale  execution  of  common 
soldiers  with  which  we  attempted  from  the  first  to  put  down  the 
rebellion.  Had  it  been  a  mutiny  of  a  company  or  a  regiment,  it 
would  have  been  of  doubtful  policy  to  hang  or  blow  from  the  guns 
all  the  privates  concerned.  But  when  an  entire  army  of  100,000 
men  have  planted  the  standard  of  revolt,  it  is  no  longer  a  mutiny, 
but  a  rebellion  and  civil  war.  To  attempt  to  hang  all  that  fall 
into  our  power  can  only  lead  to  reprisals  and  wholesale  carnage 
on  both  sides. 

"  Did  you  observe  that  the  men  who  swam  ashore  at  Cawnpore 
after  the  boats,  in  which  were  the  garrison  who  had  been  promised 
a  safe  passage,  had  been  treacherously  sunk,  were  blown  from  the 
guns  on  successive  days,  no  doubt  in  imitation  of  our  treatment 
of  the  Sepoys  ?  To  read  the  letters  of  our  officers  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  outbreak,  it  seemed  as  if  every  subaltern  had 
the  power  to  hang  or  shoot  as  many  natives  as  he  pleased,  and 
they  spoke  of  the  work  of  blood  with  as  much  levity  as  if  they 
were  hunting  wild  animals.  The  last  accounts  would  lead  one 
to  fear  that  God  is  not  favoring  our  cause,  and  that  too  many  of 
our  countrymen  are  meeting  the  fate  which  was  intended  for  the 
natives. 

"  But  the  future  —  what  is  in  the  distance  ?  The  most  certain 
and  immediate  result  is  that  we  shall  have  a  bankrupt  empire  of 
150  millions  of  people  on  our  backs.  The  end  of  this  year  will 
leave  the  Company  minus  not  much  short  of  100  millions  ster- 
ling, including  guaranteed  railways,  &c.  And  then  comes  all  the 
sacrifices  of  life  and  treasure  which  we  shall  make  to  put  down 
the  rebellion  and  reconquer  India.    And  nobody  asks  what  benefit 


^T.53.]  THE   INDIAN  MUTINY.  453 

we  shall  derive  from  our  success  !  You  know  my  opinion  of 
old  :  that  I  never  could  feel  any  enthusiasm  for  the  reform  of  our 
Indian  Government,  for  I  failed  to  satisfy  myself  that  it  was  pos- 
sible for  us  to  rule  that  vast  empire  with  advantage  to  its  people 
or  ourselves.  I  now  regard  the  task  as  utterly  hopeless,  liecent 
and  present  events  are  placing  an  impassable  gulf  between  the 
races.  Conquerors  and  conquered  can  never  live  together  again 
with  confidence  or  comfort.  It  will  be  a  happy  day  when  Eng- 
land has  not  an  acre  of  territory  in  Continental  Asia.  But  how 
such  a  state  of  things  is  to  be  brought  about,  is  more  than  I  can 
tell.  I  bless  my  stars  that  I  am  not  in  a  position  to  be  obliged  to 
give  public  utterance  to  my  views  on  the  all-absorbing  topic  of 
the  day,  for  I  could  not  do  justice  to  my  own  convictions  and  pos- 
sess the  confidence  of  any  constituency  in  the  kingdom.  For 
where  do  we  find  even  an  individual  who  is  not  imbued  with  the 
notion  that  England  would  sink  to  ruin  if  she  were  deprived  of 
her  Indian  Empire  ?     Leave  me,   then,  to  my  pigs  and  sheep, 

which  are  not  laboring  under  any  such  delusions " 

"  October  18.  {To  Colonel  Fitzmayer.)  — Do  we  find  that  Gov-  i 
ernraent  and  Parliament  acquit  themselves  so  well  in  domestic 
matters  that  they  have  a  surplus  of  efficiency  and  energy  for 
Hindostan  ?  Shall  we  give  education  to  India,  or  reform  its 
criminals,  or  abate  its  crime,  or  moderate  its  religious  bigotry 
and  intolerance  ?  Can  we  do  these  things  at  home  ?  If  a  Board 
of  Works  can't  give  us  a  common  sewer  for  London,  is  it  likely 
to  cover  India  with  canals  for  irrigation  ?  If  Catholic  and  Prot- 
estant can't  live  together  in  Belfast,  excepting  under  something ,' 
like  martial  law,  are  we  the  people  to  teach  Christian  cliarity  and 
toleration  to  the  Hindoos  ?  With  such  views  as  mine,  what  am 
I  to  do  in  public  life  in  the  midst  of  all  this  excitement  and  en- 
thusiasm for  reconquering  and  Christianizing  India  ?  I  confess  li 
'think  myself  lucky  that  I  can,  with  a  fair  plea,  exempt  myself 
from  the  task  of  speaking  at  all  in  public  on  the  subject,  for  not 
having  the  responsible  trust  of  M.  P.,  I  am  not  bound  to  shock 
people  with  my  sentiments.  For  a  politician  of  my  principles 
there  is  really  no  standing-ground.  /  The  manufacturers  of  York- 
shire and  Lancashire  look  upon  India  and  China  as  a  field  of 
enterprise  which  can  only  be  kept  open  to  them  by  force,  and  in- 
deed they  are  willing,  apparently,  to  be  at  all  the  cost  of  holding 
open  the  door  of  the  whole  of  Asia,  for  the  rest  of  the  world  to 
trade  on  the  same  terms  as  themselves.  How  few  of  those  who 
fought  for  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Law  really  understand  the  full 
meaning  of  Free  Trade  principles  !  If  you  talk  to  our  Lancashire 
friends  they  argue  that  unless  we  occupied  India  there  would  be 
no  trade  with  that  country,  or  that  somebody  else  would  monop- 
olize it,  forgetting  that  this  is  the  old  protectionist  theory  which 
they  used  formerly  to  ridicule.     India  was  a  great  centre  and 


454  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1857. 

source  of  commerce  for  the  civilized  world  before  Englishmen 
took  to  wearing  breeches,  and  it  was  the  renown  of  its  wealth  and 
productiveness  which  first  attracted  us  there.  I  am  by  no  means 
so  clear  as  some  people,  that  we  have  added  greatly  to  its  com- 
merce. Certainly  the  trade  of  European  countries  has  increased 
in  a  greater  ratio  than  that  of  India  during  the  last  century. 

"However,  I  have  wearied  you  with  my  abstractions.  The 
practical  business  in  hand  is  to  put  down  the  military  mutiny, 
which,  in  justice  to  our  own  subjects,  we  are  bound  to  do.  I  fear 
that  in  the  process  we  shall  familiarize  ourselves  with  deeds  of 
blood  which  may  tend  to  make  us  a  cruel  and  sanguinary  nation, 
and  then  God  help  Bolton  or  Oldham,  if  some  day  from  sudden 
suffering  its  passionate  multitude  should  set  the  middle  classes 
and  their  Horse  Guards  at  defiance ;  for  assuredly  then  they  who 
now  cry  for  the  destruction  of  Delhi  would  not  be  less  merciful 
to  the  bricks  and  mortar  of  Lancashire." 

"  Nov.  22.  {To  Mr.  White,  the  Member  for  Brighton.)  — .  .  .  . 
You  have  seized  upon  the  most  important  of  our  social  and  politi- 
cal questions  in  the  laws  affecting  the  transfer  of  land.  It  is  as- 
tonishing that  the  people  at  large  are  so  tacit  in  their  submission 
to  the  perpetuation  of  the  feudal  system  in  this  country  as  it 
affects  the  property  in  land,  so  long  after  it  has  been  shattered  to 
pieces  in  every  other  country  except  Eussia.  The  reason  is,  I 
suppose,  that  the  great  increase  of  our  manufacturing  system  has 
given  such  an  expansive  system  of  employment  to  the  population, 
that  the  want  of  land  as  a  field  of  investment  and  employment 
for  labor  has  been  comparatively  little  felt.  So  long  as  this  pros- 
perity of  our  manufactures  continues,  there  will  be  no  great 
outcry  against  the  landed  monopoly.  If  adversity  were  to  fall  on 
the  nation,  your  huge  feudal  properties  would, soon  be  broken  up, 
and  along  with  them  the  hereditary  system  of  government  under, 
which  we  contentedly  live  and  thrive.  When  I  was  travelling  on 
the  Continent,  I  found  among  the  thinking  part  of  the  population 
in  France,  Italy,  and  Germany,  a  great  feeling  of  surprise  that  the 
men  who  had  abolished  the  Corn  Laws  had  not  also  abolished  the 
monopoly  of  land ;  and  they  were  quite  puzzled,  and  almost  i'n- 
credulous,  when  I  told  them  that  there  was  little  feeling  against 
our  custom  of  primogeniture  even  among  the  rural  population  of 
England.  Another  reason  may  help  to  account  for  our  indiffer- 
ence to  the  subject.  We  have  been  taught  to  consider  oUr  colo- 
nies as  an  outlet  for  the  population,  and  this  not  by  a  process  of 
expatriation  to  a  foreign  land,  but  by  emigration  to  other  parts  of 
our  own  territory.  Then  there  is  our  insular  vanity,  that  scorns 
to  follow  the  example  of  other  countries  and  that  lays  us  open  to 
the  influence  of  flattery,  of  which  John  Bull  will  accept  any 
quantity,  however  coarsely  laid  on,  in  place  of  more  substantial 
payment  of  what  is  honestly  his  due." 


^r.  53.]  THE   INDIAN  MUTINY.  455 

"  London,  May  16,  1858.  {To  G.  Combe.) — .  ...  I  have  come 
to  London  for  a  few  weeks,  and  have  brought  ray  wife  and  little 
girls.  We  have  been  staying  with  our  friends  in  a  succession  of 
visits,  and  I  have  seen  a  little  of  the  politicians  from  whom  I  have 
been  so  long  separated. 

"  I  am  afraid  our  national  character  is  being  deteriorated,  and 
our  love  of  freedom  in  danger  of  being  impaired  by  what  is  pass- 
ing in  India.  Is  it  possible  that  we  can  play  the  part  of  despot 
and  butcher  there  without  finding  our  character  deteriorated  at 
home  ?  Were  not  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Eomans  corrupted  and 
demoralized  by  their  Asiatic  conquests,  and  may  we  not  shai-e 
their  fate,  though  in  a  different  way  ?  Then  conies  the  question 
which  you  have  so  ably  put  in  your  letter.  '  What  possible  bene- 
fit can  we  derive  from  our  Indian  conquests  ? '  I  confess  I  take 
a  gloomy  view  of  our  prospects  in  that  quarter.  The  English 
people  will  not  give  up  Hindostan,  any  more  than  they  did  North 
America,  without  years  of  exhausting  war. 

"  It  is  more  and  more  my  conviction  that  the  task  of  govern- 
ing despotically  150  millions  of  people  at  a  distance  of  twelve 
thousand  miles  cannot  be  executed  by  a  constitutional  Govern- 
ment. It  ought  to  be  done,  if  at  all,  by  a  despot,  whose  rule  is 
concentrated,  and  less  liable  to  personal  changes  than  our  rep- 
resentative forms  admit.  With  a  change  of  Government  every 
six  or  twelve  months  it  is  impossible  that  we  can  have  a  continu- 
ous plan  or  a  real  responsibility.  Since  I  have  been  in  London, 
I  have  heard  scarcely  a  word  about  the  best  mode  of  governing 
the  millions  of  India.  The  only  talk  is  about  the  chance  of  turn- 
ing out  one  Ministry  and  bringing  in  another." 

''March  28.  {To  Mr  Gilpin.)  —  What  a  pretentious  and  hypo- 
critical people  we  are  in  our  dealings  with  the  outside  world ! 
How  we  abuse  and  bully  King  Bomba  because  he  will  not  govern 
his  lazzaroni  according  to  our  notions  of  constitutionalism  !  But 
when  you  propose  to  apply  a  little  of  our  love  of  liberty  to  our 
own  fellow-subjects  in  India, '  Oh  !  oh  ! '  is  the  reply  you  meet  with 
in  the  House.  Yet  you  would  have  no  difficulty  in  carrying  the 
cheers  of  the  said  House  for  any  proposal  to  put  the  slaves  in 
America  or  Cuba  immediately  on  the  same  political  level  as  their 
masters.  This  nation  will  meet  with  a  terrible  check  some  day, 
unless  it  makes  a  little  better  progress  in  the  science  of  self- 
knowledge." 

''October  30.  (  „  )  — .  .  .  .  IS'Klapka  gone  ?  He  mentioned 
to  me  in  conversation  some  views  about  our  Indian  massacres  of 
private  men,  that  I  should  like  to  be  allowed  to  quote  some  day. 
I  remember  he  expressed  himself  as  a  soldier  with  some  disgust 
on  the  subject.  He  said  the  indiscriminate  destruction  of  rank 
and  file  was  unprecedented  in  modern  times,  and  he  stated  that" 
anybody  accustomed  to  armies  knew  that  when  a  whole  regiment 


456  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1858. 

or  army  fell  from  its  allegiance,  the  great  body  of  the  privates 
really  took  no  active  part,  that  they  went  with  the  officers  as  a 
matter  of  instinct,  and  that  perhaps  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
violent  ringleaders  the  rest  hardly  knew  anything  about  it.  In 
some  cases  a  minority  would  in  their  hearts  be  opposed  to  the 
mutiny,  but  they  had  no  choice  but  go  with  the  rest.  He  argued 
that  to  slay  all  alike  in  the  field  or  on  the  gallows  was  terrible." 

A  few  months  before  this,  Cobden  had  felt  for  an  instant  that 
he  would  have  liked  to  be  in  the  House.  Mr.  Gibson,  who  had 
found  a  seat  at  Ashton-under-Lyne,  beat  Lord  Palmerston  on  the 
Conspiracy  to  Murder  Bill  (Feb.  20),  and  the  Minister  who  had 
returned  to  power  in  triumph  eleven  months  before,  suddenly 
saw  himself  compelled  to  resign.  "  When  I  read,"  said  Cobden 
to  Mr.  Lindsay,  "  the  account  of  Bright  and  Gibson  walking  up 
to  the  table  of  the  House  to  pass  sentence  upon  that  venerable 
political  sinner,  I  could  not  help  thinking  what  a  fine  historical 
picture  the  artist  missed.  There  was  surely  something  more  than 
chance  in  bringing  back  these  two  men  to  inflict  summary  punish- 
ment on  the  man  who  flattered  himself  a  few  months  ago  that  he 
had  put  his  heel  on  their  political  necks.  For  the  first  time  I  felt 
regret  at  not  being  there  to  witness  that  scene  of  retributive 
justice." 

On  the  feeling  between  England  and  France  which  had  arisen 
in  connection  with  the  circumstances  of  the  Conspiracy  to  Murder 
Bill,  he  wrote  to  his  friend,  Michel  Chevalier :  — 

"  July  13.  —  It  is  useless,  our  pursuing  the  tu  qiioque  argument, 
otherwise  I  should  remind  you  that  our  estrangement  has  all  sprung 
out  of  the  unfortunate  course  pursued  by  your  Government  at  the 
time  of  the  Orsini  horror.  Never  did  your  Emperor  fall  into  such 
a  mistake  as  to  seek  to  widen  the  responsibility  of  that  mad  out- 
rage by  making  it  the  ground  of  domestic  legislation  of  a  re- 
strictive character  and  of  diplomatic  negotiation,  requiring  fresh 
safeguards  from  foreign  Governments :  all  which  assumed  that 
others  besides  those  frenzied  Italians  were  plotting  against  his  life. 
To  assume  that  assassination  had  sympathizers  in  England,  France, 
or  elsewhere,  was  an  insult  to  humanity.  His  policy  should  have 
been  the  very  opposite.  He  should  have  thrust  aside  the  inju- 
dicious advisers  who  recommended  such  a  course,  and  should  have 
loudly  proclaimed  his  belief  that  men  of  all  nations  would  equally 
join  in  condemning  the  devilish  act :  and  he  should  have  placed 
himself  under  the  protection  of  that  sentiment  of  horror  which 
was  universally  entertained,  whilst  he  might  have  frankly  owned 
that  his  life,  like  that  of  every  other  man,  was  at  the  mercy  of 
those  who  chose  to  cast  off  all  the  restraints  of  reason,  religion, 
and  humanity.  Such  a  course  as  this,  narrowing  the  responsi- 
"  bility  of  the  atrocious  act  to  those  who  were  its  wicked  authors, 
would  have  attracted  the  sympathy  of  the  whole  civilized  world. 


^T.  54.]  PRIVATE   AFFAIRS.  457 

But  it  is  useless  now  to  dwell  on  these  reminiscences.  I  hope  the 
really  gallant  conduct  of  our  Queen  in  paying  a  visit  to  Cherbourg, 
and  thus  giving  a  slap  in  the  face  to  those  mischievous  fools  who 
are  constantly  raisiug  the  cry  of  a  French  invasion,  will  have  the 
effect  of  soothing  all  the  irritation  on  your  side." 

The  second  Administration  of  Lord  Derby  was  formed,  and  Mr. 
Lindsay  asked  for  Cobden's  view  of  the  new  political  situation. 
In  reply  he  once  more  preached  a  sermon  on  the  old  text. 

"  March  23.  —  *  The  present  men  are  more  honest,  and  they 
are  certainly  more  obliging  than  the  last.'  In  this  I  agree  with 
you,  and  it  might  have  been  said  of  any  Tory  Government  as  com- 
pared with  any  Whig  one  since  I  have  been  in  the  political  ring. 
I  remember  when  I  came  into  the  House  in  1841,  after  the  gen- 
eral election  which  gave  Peel  a  majority  of  ninety,  I  found  the 
Tories  more  civil  in  the  intercourse  of  the  lobbies  and  the  refresh- 
ment-rooms than  the  Whigs.  It  runs  through  all  departments.  It 
seems  as  if  the  Whig  leaders  always  thought  it  necessary  to  snub 
the  Eadicals,  to  satisfy  the  Tories  they  were  not  dangerous  poli- 
ticians. But  I  do  not  blame  them,  for  they  live  by  it.  I  do  blame 
those  advanced  Liberals  who  allow  themselves  to  be  thus  used  and 
abused.  There  is  no  remedy  but  in  the  greater  self-respect  of  the 
middle  class.  I  fear  we  have  been  going  the  other  way  for  the 
last  ten  years.     The  great  prosperity  of  the  country  made  Tories 

of  us  all During  my  experience  the  higher  classes  never 

stood  so  high  in  relative  social  and  political  rank,  as  compared  with 
other  classes,  as  at  present.  The  middle  class  have  been  content 
with  the  very  crumbs  from  their  table.  The  more  contempt  a 
man  like  Palmerston  (as  intense  an  aristocrat  at  heart  as  any  of 
them)  heaped  on  them,  the  louder  they  cheered  him.  Twenty 
years  ago,  when  a  hundred  members  of  the  House  used  to  muster 
at  the  call  of  Hume  or  Warburton  to  compel  the  Whigs  to  move 
on  under  threats  of  desertion,  there  seemed  some  hope  of  the 
middle  class  setting  up  for  themselves ;  but  now  there  is  no  such 


"  You  ask  me  my  view  of  the  political  situation.  It  is  hard 
fate  for  me  to  be  obliged  to  choose  between  Derby  and  Palmerston, 
but  if  compelled  to  do  so,  I  should  certainly  prefer  the  former. 
Nothing  can  be  so  humiliating  to  us  as  a  party  or  a  nation  as  to 
see  that  venerable  political  impostor  at  the  head  of  affairs.  But 
how  will  you  prevent  his  return  to  power  ?  .  .  .  .  Half  a  dozen 
great  families  meet  at  Walmer  and  dispose  of  the  rank  and  file 
of  the  party,  just  as  I  do  the  lambs  that  I  am  now  selling  for  your 
aldermen's  table.  And  I  very  much  doubt  whetlier  you  can  put 
an  end  to  this  ignominious  state  of  things.  Until  you  can,  I 
don't  think  you  are  playing  a  part  in  any  noble  drama." 

During  this  period  of  withdrawal  from  active  public  life,  Cob- 
den  was  greatly  harassed  by  private  anxieties.     As  there  was 


y 


/ 


I 


^ 


458  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1858. 

always  much  ill-natured  gossip  about  his  affairs,  it  is  well  to  state 
the  facts  as  they  were.  With  a  portion  of  the  proceeds  of  the 
national  testimonial  Cobden,  as  we  have  already  seen,  had  pur- 
chased the  little  property  which  had  belonged  to  his  forefathers. 
The  rest,  or  most  of  the  rest,  he  had  invested  in  the  shares  of  an 
American  railway.  The  Illinois  Central  is  the  great  line  from 
North  to  South,  with  its  headquarters  at  Chicago,  taking  its  course 
right  through  the  centre  of  the  rich  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
joining  the  great  river  itself  at  Saint  Louis,  Cairo,  and  New  Or- 
leans. Very  large  tracts  of  the  finest  alluvial  soil  in  Illinois  were 
ceded  to  the  company  on  each  side  of  the  line.  The  company 
therefore  had  two  sources  of  profit,  one  arising  from  the  sale  of 
the  lands,  the  other  from  the  traffic  on  the  line  itself,  which  in 
grain  was  very  large  and  daily  increasing.  Such  property  wag 
clearly  a  legitimate  investment  to  persons  who,  if  more  capital 
were  called  up  than  was  at  first  anticipated,  could  afford  to  meet 
the  calls  upon  their  shares  without  inconvenience.^  With  a  man 
in  Cobden's  position  the  case  was  different.  In  this  matter,  how- 
ever, he  was  not  disposed  to  listen  to  the  advice  of  his  friends, 
who  recommended  him  only  to  hold  bonds  or  paid-up  shares.  "  I 
recollect,"  says  Mr.  W.  S.  Lindsay,  "  having  many  conversations 
with  Cobden  on  this  subject.  I  agreed  with  him  entirely  as  to 
the  prospects  of  the  line,  but  we  differed  as  to  the  time  when 
the  large  prospective  profits  of  the  undertaking  could  be  realized. 
He  thought  they  were  close  at  hand ;  I,  on  the  contrary,  held  the 
opinion  that,  while  all  the  land  would  in  time  find  purchasers, 
they  would  rather  belong  to  the  next  generation  than  to  our  own. 
In  this  instance  my  views  came  true.  The  land  found  purchasers, 
but  not  to  the  extent  nor  with  the  rapidity  anticipated.  The 
directors  had  calculated  that  the  proceeds  from  the  sale  of  the 
lands  would  enable  them  to  complete  the  line,  and  consequently 
render  further  calls  upon  the  shareholders  unnecessary.  In  this 
they  were  mistaken." 

"  Cobden,"  Mr.  Lindsay  goes  on  to  say,  "  viewed  his  investments 
in  an  entirely  different  light  from  that  in  which  they  would  be 
seen  by  an  ordinary  man  of  business.  He  thought  of  the  over- 
crowded cities  of  Europe,  and  of  the  masses  of  people  who  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic  were  seeking,  or  about  to  seek,  new  homes  in 
the  far  West.  His  mind  surveyed  at  a  glance  the  vast  expanse  of 
rich,  unoccupied  virgin  land  in  the  mighty  valley  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, through  which  the  Illinois  Central  ran  its  course,  —  a  valley 
where  millions  of  people  from  the  old  world  could  find  profitable 
employment.  He  was  aware  of  the  great  and  rapidly  increasing 
facilities  which  would  enable  the  intending  emigrant  to  reach  this 
most  tempting  field  at  less  cost  than  their  fathers  could  have  trav- 

1  The  100  dollar  ordinary  shares  were  lately  at  150,  and  are  now  138. 


iET.54.]  PRIVATE   AFFAIRS.  459 

elled  from  Glasgow  to  London ;  and  for  these  reasons  he  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  demand  for  the  company's  land  would  be 
both  great  and  immediate,  and  the  money  derived  from  the  sale 
would  be  more  than  suf&cient  to  complete  all  the  works  connected 
with  the  railway.  But  Cobden  was  no  speculator  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  the  word." 

In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Moffatt,  with  whom  he  was  in  constant  corre- 
spondence on  the  subject  at  this  time,  Cobden  shows  how  conscious 
he  was  of  the  view  which  a  hard-headed  man  of  business  would 
be  likely  to  take  of  what  he  was  doing.  At  the  beginning  of 
1858,  Mr.  Osborn,  the  Chairman  of  the  Eailway,  was  in  England, 
and  visited  him  at  Dunford. 

"  Osborn  was  so  candid  with  me,"  Cobden  writes,  "  so  disinter- 
ested and  friendly  in  his  advice,  that  I  could  not  help  suspecting 
that  a  very  good  friend  of  mine  had  whispered  in  his  ear  some- 
thing to  this  effect.  'Say  nothing  to  feed  his  sanguine  views. 
He  has  already  become  tete  montee  about  the  Illinois ;  but  rather 
throw  in  a  word  of  caution  about  putting  too  many  eggs  in  one 
basket.  He  is  a  worn-out  agitator,  out  of  business,  *  with  a  young 
family.  Such  people  ought  not  to  become  speculators.  As  a  rule 
your  public  men,  and  especially  your  revolutionary  leaders,  make 
unsuccessful  men  of  business.  They  look  too  high  and  too  far, 
and  others  who  fire  at  a  shorter  range  beat  them  in  the  field. 
Besides,  they  look  at  things  too  much  in  the  gross,  neglect  details, 
and  disregard  the  element  of  time,  which  in  speculation  is  every- 
thing. Here  is  Cobden  dealing  with  Illinois  Central  as  if  they 
were  going  to  yield  liim  a  profit  next  quarter-day.  Warn  him 
that  it  will  take  many  years  to  realize  all  his  expectations.'  Am  I 
not  right  in  my  surmise  ? " 

Whether  the  surmise  was  right  or  not,  it  is  clear  that  the  in- 
vestment, however  sound,  was  not  a  prudent  one  for  a  man  who 
had  no  spare  capital,  and  who  needed  income.  Cobden  was 
greatly  inconvenienced  by  outstanding  loans  which  were  raised  to 
pay  the  calls.  In  connection  with  them,  it  is  for  the  honor  of 
human  nature  that  we  should  mention  an  extraordinary  example 
of  grateful  and  considerate  munificence.  The  late  Mr.  Thomasson 
of  Bolton,  hearing  from  Mr.  Slagg,  their  common  friend,  that  Cob- 
den was  embarrassed  by  one  of  these  outstanding  loans  for  the 
Illinois  shares,  amounting  to  several  thousand  pounds,  released 
the  shares  and  sent  them  to  Cobden,  with  a  request  that  he  would 
do  him  the  favor  to  accept  their  freedom  at  his  hands  "  in  ac- 
knowledgment of  his  vast  services  to  his  country  and  mankind." 
On  a  later  occasion,  when  the  same  difficulty  recurred  for  the  same 
reasons,  Mr.  Thomasson  went  down  to  Midhurst,  ascertained  the 
circumstances,  and  insisted  that  Cobden  should  accept  a  still 
larger  sum,  refusing  a  formal  acknowledgment,  and  handing  it 


460  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1858. 

over  in  such  a  form  that  the  transaction  was  not  known  to  any- 
one but  Cobden  and  himself.  After  Mr.  Thomasson's  death,  there 
was  found  among  liis  private  papers  a  little  memorandum  of  his 
advances,  containing  these  magnanimous  words :  "  I  lament  that 
the  greatest  benefactor  of  mankind  since  the  Inventor  of  printing 
should  be  placed  in  a  position  where  his  public  usefulness  is  com- 
promised and  impeded  by  sordid  personal  cares  ;  but  I  have  done 
something  as  my  share  of  what  is  due  to  him  from  his  countrymen 
to  set  him  free  for  further  efforts  in  the  cause  of  human  progress. 
My  children  will  hereafter  be  proud  that  their  father  at  all  events 
recognized  his  claims.  Their  fortunes  are  to  a  great  extent  the 
result  of  Kichard  Cobden's  sacrifices." 

It  was  in  coimection  with  the  Illinois  Eailway  that  Cobden 
made  his  second  voyage  to  the  United  States.  He  went  on  behalf 
of  other  English  shareholders  to  examine  the  line  and  its  manage- 
ment on  the  spot.  He  remained  in  the  country  for  three  months. 
Everything  that  he  saw  delighted  him.  The  material  and  moral 
progress  since  his  visit  in  1835  realized  all  his  expectations.  "  It 
is  the  universal  hope  of  rising  in  the  social  scale,"  he  told  Mr. 
Bright,  "  which  is  the  key  to  much  of  the  superiority  that  is  visi- 
ble in  this  country.     It  {accounts  for  the  orderly  self-respect  which 

is  the  great  characteristic  of  the  masses  in  the  United  States 

All  this  tends  to  the  argument  that  the  political  condition  of  a 
people  is  very  much  dependent  on  its  economical  fate." 

So  far  as  the  immediate  object  of  his  journey  went  Cobden  de- 
clared himself  to  be  more  than  satisfied.  "  As  respects  the  main 
question,"  he  wrote  to  his  wife,  "  as  to  the  ultimate  success  of  the 
undertaking,  I  have  no  doubt  whatever  that  it  will  prove  the  best 
railroad  investment  in  America.  But  unfortunately  it  does  not 
suit  me  to  wait,  and  nearly  all  I  have  is  at  stake."  In  another 
letter  to  Mrs.  Cobden  he  writes :  "  My  thoughts  are  much  with  you 
and  the  dear  children.  I  feel  great  anxiety  to  know  that  you  are 
settled.  Everything  has  gone  as  unluckily  as  possible  with  me. 
I  sometimes  feel  almost  unnerved,  great  as  is  my  energy  and  nat- 
ural buoyancy."  As  we  shall  see  presently,  the  clouds  vanished 
quickly  from  his  spirit,  as  soon  as  ever  he  saw  a  piece  of  useful 
work  to  be  done. 


^T.  55.]  •    RETOftN':FROM  AMERICA.  461 

'       ^  OF   THE  ^r 

university; 

CHAFTTE'^YIII 

eeturn  from  america. — the  new  ministry. 

During  Cobden's  absence,  great  events  came  to  pass  in  the  parlia-  ^/ 
mentary  world.     Mr.  Disraeli  introduced  his  Eeform  Bill  (Feb., 
1859),  which  included  the  famous  "fancy"  franchises,  and  the 
use  of  voting  papers.     The  Conservatives  did  not  like  the  Bill,  and 
two  of  their  most  respected  leaders,  Mr.  Henley  and  Mr.  Walpole,  ^ 
quitted  the  Ministry  rather  than  be  parties  to  it.     The  Whigs   / 
objected  to  it  as  an  encroachment  on  their  own  political  preserves. 
Mr.  Bright  denounced  it  as  absurd  and  irritating,  disturbing  every-     / 
thing  and  settling  nothing.     The  Government  were  defeated  by  / 
a  majority  of  thirty-nine  in  a  house  of  six  hundred  and  twenty- 
one    members.      They  dissolved  Parliament   three  weeks  after- 
wards, and  the  writs  for  its  successor  were  issued  before  the  end 
of  April. 

The  men  of  Eochdale  met  and  resolved  to  choose  Cobden  as  the  s/^ 
Liberal  candidate.  Mr.  Brig^ht  went  to  their  meetinf^  and  com- 
mended  to  them  his  "  political  associate,  his  political  brother,"  in 
a  manly  and  cordial  record  of  Cobden's  past  career.  Cobden  had 
told  him  that  he  would  rather  sit  for  Rochdale  than  for  any  other 
borough  in  England ;  for  Rochdale  Liberalism,  he  said,  had  heart 
enough  in  it  "  to  back  up  a  man  against  the  aristocratic  section 
of  the  legislature."  Cobden  was  eventually  returned  without  a 
contest. 

When  the  elections  were  over  the  Conservatives  claimed  to 
have  gained  twenty-nine  seats,  but  this  was  not  enough  to  se- 
cure them  against  a  union  of  the  various  sections  of  the  Oppo- 
sition. The  day  before  the  assembling  of  the  new  Parliament 
(June  6)  those  sections  held  a  conference  at  Willis's  Rooms, 
settled  their  differences  with  one  another,  and  devised  a  vote  of 
want  ot  confidence  as  an  amendment  on  the  Address.  This  vote 
was  moved  the  next  night  by  Lord  Hartington,  and  was  carried, 
after  a  debate  which  lasted  three  nights,  by  a  majority  of  thirteen 
in  a  house  of  six  hundred  and  forty-three  (June  10).  The  Gov- 
ernment immediately  resigned. 

Before  the  meeting  at  Willis's  Rooms,  the  two  chiefs  whose 
rivalry  had  so  long  weakened  party  organization  had  come  to  an 
understanding  that  either  would  consent  to  serve  under  the  other. 
The  Queen  was  unwilling  to  settle  the  question  between  "  two 


462  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1859. 

statesmen  so  full  of  years  and  honors,"  and  sent  for  a  younger  and 
less  experienced  man.  But  Lord  Granville,  after  making  an  attempt 
to  form  a  Ministry,  resigned  a  task  in  which  it  had  never  been 
possible  for  him  to  succeed.  Lord  Palmerston  was  designated  for 
y  the  first  post  by  a  voice  which  the  sovereign  of  a  free  country  cannot 
^  pretend  to  ignore.  All  difficulties  disappeared  before  his  incom- 
parably strong  political  position,  and  within  five  days  of  the  defeat 
of  the  fallen  Government  Lord  Palmerston  had  completed  his  list, 
with  the  exception  of  one  post.  This  post  was  reserved  for  Cob- 
den,  then  known  to  be  on  his  way  home. 

The  following  is  the  letter  which  was  despatched  by  the  new 
Prime  Minister  to  meet  him  on  landing  at  Liverpool :  — 

"  94,  Piccadilly,  11th  June,  1859. 

"  My  dear  Sir,  —  I  understand  that  it  is  likely  that  you  may 
arrive  at  Liverpool  to-morrow,  and  I  therefore  wish  that  this  letter 
should  be  placed  in  your  hands  upon  your  landing. 

"  I  have  been  commissioned  by  the  Queen  to  form  an  Adminis- 
^  tration,  and  I  have  endeavored  so  to  frame  it,  that  it  should  contain 
representatives  of  all  sections  of  the  Liberal  party,  convinced  as 
I  am  that  no  government  constructed  upon  any  other  basis  could 
have  sufficient  prospect  of  duration,  or  would  be  sufficiently  satis- 
factory to  the  country. 

"  Mr.  Milner  Gibson  has  most  handsomely  consented  to  waive  all 
former  difficulties,  and  to  become  a  member  of  the  new  Cabinet. 
I  am  most  exceedingly  anxious  that  you  should  consent  to  adopt 
the  same  line,  and  I  have  kept  open  for  you  the  office  of  President 
I  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  which  appeared  to  me  to  be  the  one  best 
suited  to  your  views,  and  to  the  distinguished  part  which  you  have 
taken  in  public  life.  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  see  you,  and  to  have 
personal  communication  with  you  as  soon  as  may  be  convenient 
to  you  on  your  arrival  in  London,  and  I  am, 

"  My  dear  Sir, 

"  Yours  faithfully, 

"Palmerston." 

The  invitation  was  supported  by  a  letter  which  was  sent  at  the 
same  time  by  Lord  Palmerston's  most  important  colleague :  — 

"Chesharn  Place,  June  25th,  1859. 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Cobden,  —  Lord  Palmerston  will  have  written 
to  you  to  offer  you  a  seat  in  his  Cabinet. 

"  An  attempt  has  been  made,  more  or  less  wisely,  to  form  a  gov- 
ernment from  various  sections  of  Liberals.  Recent  speeches  have 
prevented  the  offer  of  a  cabinet  office  to  Mr.  Bright.  This  is 
much  to  be  regretted ;  but  if  you  accept,  his  accession  may  take 


iET.55.]  RETURN  FROM  AMERICA.  463 

place  hereafter.  If  you  refuse,  I  do  not  see  a  prospect  of  amalga- 
mating the  Liberal  party  during  my  lifetime. 

"  In  these  circumstances  I  confess  I  think  it  is  a  DUTY  for  you 
to  accept  the  office  of  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade. 

"  I  remain, 

"  Yours  faithfully, 

"  J.  EUSSELL." 

Cobden  arrived  in  the  Mersey  on  June  29,  and  in  a  letter  written 
the  next  day  to  Mrs.  Cobden,  described  what  happened  : — 

"Manchester,  June  30, 1859.  —  I  had  but  a  moment  yesterday  in 
Liverpool  to  apprise  you  of  my  safe  arrival  in  England.  As  I 
came  up  the  Mersey,  I  little  dreamed  of  the  reception  which 
awaited  me.  Crowds  of  friends  were  ready  to  greet  and  cheer  me  ; 
and  before  I  left  the  ship  a  packet  of  letters  was  put  in  my  hand, 
containing  one  from  Lord  Palmerston,  offering  me  a  seat  in  the 
Cabinet  as  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  and  another  from  Lord 
John  Kussell,  urging  me  in  the  very  strongest  terms  to  accept  it. 
There  were  letters  from  Moffatt,  Gilpin,  and  a  great  many  others, 
advising  me  not  to  refuse  the  offer. 

"  I  was  completely  taken  by  surprise  by  all  this,  for  I  had  heard 
nothing  of  the  change  of  government,  and  was  twenty-five  days 
without  having  seen  the  latest  news  from  England,  namely  eleven 
days'  passage,  and  fourteen  days  which  we  were  behind  the  news 
when  I  left  Quebec. 

"  I  went  on  shore  and  proceeded  to  the  hotel,  where  my  troubles 
began.  More  than  a  hundred  of  the  leading  men  of  Liverpool 
assembled  in  the  large  room  to  present  me  with  an  address,  which 

was  put  into  my  hand  by  Mr.  William  Brown Afterwards 

Mr.  Kobertson  Gladstone,  from  the  Financial  Eeform  Association, 
Mr.  Eathbone,  from  the  American  Chamber  of  Commerce,  and  the 
President  of  the  Peace  Society,  all  presented  addresses,  to  which 
I  was  obliged,  without  a  moment's  notice,  and  with  my  head  still 
swimming  with  the  motion  of  the  sea,  to  deliver  replies.  It  was 
really  like  killing  one  with  kindness.  I  have  come  on  here  [to 
Manchester]  to  see  my  friends,  and  hear  what  they  have  to  say. 
A  deputation  from  Eochdale  is  over  also.  And  I  have  an  address 
from  a  nuraber  of  persons,  including  Bazley  and  H.  Ash  worth,  wish- 
ing me  to  accept  the  offer  of  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet.  Indeed,  almost 
without  exception,  everybody,  Eadicals,  peace  men,  and  aU,  are 
trying  to  persuade  me  to  it. 

"  Now  it  really  seems  to  me  that  they  must  all  have  gone  mad, 
for  with  my  recorded  opinions  of  Lord  Palmerston's  public  con- 
duct during  the  last  dozen  years,  in  which  opinions  I  have  esrperi- 
enced  no  change,  were  I  suddenly  to  jump  at  the  offer  of  a  place 
under  him,  I  should  ruin  myself  in  my  own  self-respect,  and 


464  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1859. 

ultimately  lose  the  confidence  of  the  very  men  who  are  in  this 
moment  of  excitement  urging  me  to  enter  his  Cabinet.  So  great 
is  the  pressure  put  on  me,  that  if  it  were  Lord  Granville,  or  even 
Lord  John,  at  the  head  of  affairs,  I  should  be  obliged,  greatly 
against  my  will,  to  be  a  Eight  Honorable.  But  to  take  office  now, 
»  ^  without  a  single  declaration  of  change  of  view  regarding  his  public 
^  conduct,  would  be  so  monstrous  a  course,  that  nothing  on  earth 
shall  induce  me  to  do  it.  I  am  going  to  town  this  afternoon,  and 
shall  forward  him  my  answer  on  my  arrival.  I  listen  to  all  my 
friends  and  say  nothing,  but  my  mind  is  made  up." 

On  arriving  a  day  or  two  later  in  London,  Cobden  lost  no  time 
in  calling  upon  Lord  Palmerston.  He  wrote  a  full  account  of  all 
that  passed  between  them  to  Mr.  Sale,  his^  brother-in-law  in 
Manchester. 

"  London,  4tth  July,  1859.  —  I  thought  it  best  on  my  arrival  in 
town  to  go  first  to  Palmerston,  and  explain  plainly  and  frankly 
everything.  On  calling  on  him  I  was  most  pleasantly  welcomed, 
and  we  talked  as  usual  for  a  few  minutes  on  everything  but  what 
I_went  about.  At  length  I  broke  the  ice  in  this  way.  '  You  have 
facted  in  so  manly  and  magnanimous  a  manner  in  pressing  me  to 
^  take  office  in  your  Cabinet,  that  I  feel  bound  to  come  and  talk  to 
you  without  reserve  upon  the  subject.  My  case  is  this.  For  the  • 
last  twelve  years  I  have  been  the  systematic  and  constant  assail- 
ant of  the  principle  on  which  your  foreign  policy  has  been  carried 
on.  I  believed  you  to  be  warlike,  intermeddling,  and  quarrelsome, 
and  that  your  policy  was  calculated  to  embroil  us  with  foreign 
nations.  At  the  same  time  I  have  expressed  a  general  want  of 
confidence  in  your  domestic  politics.  Now  I  may  have  been 
altogether  wrong  in  my  views ;  it  is  possible  I  may  have  been, 
but  I  put  it  candidly  to  you  whether  it  ought  to  be  in  your 
Cabinet,  whilst  holding  a  post  of  high  honor  and  emolument 
derived  from  you,  that  I  should  make  the  first  avowal  of  a  change 
of  opinion  respecting  your  public  policy  ?  Should  I  not  expose 
myself  to  severe  suspicions,  and  deservedly  so,  if  I  were  under 
these  circumstances  to  step  from  an  Atlantic  steamer  into  your 
Cabinet  ?  Understand,  I  beg,  that  I  have  no  personal  feelings 
which  prevent  me  from  accepting  your  offer.  I  have  opposed  you 
as  the  supposed  representative  of  what  I  believed  to  be  dangerous 
principles.  If  I  have  ever  been  personally  offensive  in  my  oppo- 
sition it  was  not  intended,  and  assuredly  you  never  gave  me  any 
justification  for  such  a  course.' 

"  In  reply  he  disclaimed  any  feelings  of  a  personal  kind,  and 
said  that  even  if  there  had  been  any  personalities,  they  never 
ought  to  be  remembered  for  three  months;  and  he  added  in  a 
laughing  way  that  he  thought  Gibson  had  hit  him  quite  as  hard 
as  I  had.     Then  he  commenced  to  combat  my  objections,  and  to 


JET.55.]  THE   NEW  MINISTRY.  465 

offer,  with  apparently  great  sincerity,  a  variety  of  arguments  to] 
show  that  I  ought  to  enter  the  Cabinet,  dwelling  particularly 
on  the  fact  that  as  questions  of  foreign  policy  were  now  upper- 
most, and  as  those  questions  were  in  the  hands  of  the  Executive, 
it  was  only  by  joining  the  Government  that  I  could  influence 
them.  'You  and  your  friends  complain,'  he  said,  'of  a  secret] 
diplomacy,  and  that  wars  are  entered  into  without  consulting  tKe 
people.  Now  it  is  in  the  Cabinet  alone  that  questions  of  foreign 
policy  are  settled.  We  never  consult  Parliament  till  after  they 
are  settled.  If,  therefore,  you  wish  to  have  a  voice  in  those  ques- 
tions, you  can  only  do  so  in  the  Cabinet.'  This  was  the  argument 
I  found  it  most  difficult  to  answer,  and  therefore  he  pressed  it 
most  strongly. 

"  But  finding  me  still  firm  in  my  objections,  he  observed  laugh- 
ingly, 'Why  are  you  in  the  House  of  Commons?'  I  answered 
also  with  a  laugh,  '  Upon  my  word  I  hardly  know.'  '  But  why 
did  you  enter  public  life  ? '  said  he.  '  I  hardly  know,'  was  my 
answer ;  '  it  was  by  mere  accident,  and  for  a  special  purpose,  and 
probably  it  would  have  been  better  for  me  and  my  family  if  I 
had  kept  my  private  station.'  Upon  which  he  threw  out  both 
his  hands,  and,  with  a  laugh  louder  than  before,  he  exclaimed, 
'  Well,  but  being  in  it,  why  not  go  on  ? '  He  added,  '  Recollect  I 
don't  offer  you  the  seat  from  any  desire  of  my  own  to  change  my 
colleagues.  If  left  to  me,  T  would  of  course  rather  have  gone  on 
as  before  with  my  old  friends.  I  offer  you  the  seat  because  you 
have  a  right  to  it.' 

"  In  answer  to  my  remark  that  perhaps  others  might  be  found 
quite  as  much  entitled  as  myself  to  represent  the  advanced  Liberals 
in  his  Government,  he  replied  quickly,  '  Will  you  be  good  enough 
to  mention  the  name  of  any  one  excepting  Bright,  Gibson,  and 
yourself,  that  I  could  bring  into  the  Cabinet  as  the  representative 
of  the  Radicals  ? '  I  urged  that  Bright  had  been  unfairly  judged, 
and  that  his  speeches  at  Birmingham,  &c.,  were  not  of  a  kind  to 
exclude  him  from  an  offer  of  a  seat,  and  I  remarked  that  he  had 
very  carefully  avoided  personalities  in  those  speeches.  *  It  is  not 
personalities  that  are  complained  of ;  a  public  man,'  said  he,  '  is 
right  in  attacking  persons.  But  it  is  his  attacks  on  classes  that 
have  given  offence  to  powerful  bodies,  who  can  make  their  resent- 
ment felt.' 

"  In  the  course  of  his  remarks  he  gave  me  a  full  explanation  of 
his  views  on  the  present  war,  and  expressed  his  determination 
to  preserve  a  strict  neutrality,  observing  that,  as  the  people  of 
England  would  as  soon  think  of  '  evacuating  these  islands '  as  to 
go  to  war  in  behalf  of  Austria,  and  as  France  did  not  ask  us  to  help 
her,  he  could  not  see  any  possibility  of  our  bekig  mixed  up  in  the 
fray.     On  this  point  he  remarked :  —  'If  you  are  afraid  of  our 

30 


466  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1859. 

abandoning  our  neutral  ground,  why  don't  you  come  into  the 
citadel  of  power,  where  you  could  have  a  voice  in  preventing  it  ? ' 

"On  his  remarking  upon  the  difficulty  there  would  be  in  carry- 
ing on  the  Government  unless  all  parties  were  united,  and  how 
impossible  it  was  for  him  to  do  so  if  the  natural  representatives 
of  the  Liberals  would  not  take  office,  I  replied  that  the  very  fact 
of  his  having  offered  me  office  was,  so  far  as  I  was  concerned,  his 
justification ;  and  that  /  should  be  blamed,  and  not  he,  in  the 
matter.  And  I  added,  '  I  shall  give  just  the  same  support  to  your 
Government  whilst  Mr.  Gibson  is  in  it,  who  represents  identically 
my  views,  as  I  should  if  I  were  one  of  your  Government :  for  I 
should  be  certain  to  run  away,  if  you  were  to  do  anything  very 
contrary  to  my  strong  convictions.'  I  added  that  at  present  there 
were  only  two  subjects  on  which  we  could  have  any  serious  dif- 
ference, and  that  if  he  kept  out  of  the  war,  and  gave  us  a  fair 
Keform  measure,  I  did  not  see  any  other  point  on  which  I  should 
be  found  opposing  him.  He  returned  to  the  argument  that  my 
presence  in  the  Government  was  the  important  step  required  ; 
and  I  then  told  him  that  having  run  the  gauntlet  of  my  friends 
in  Lancashire,  who  had  kindly  pressed  the  matter  on  me,  and 
having  resolved  to  act  in  opposition  to  their  views,  which  nothing 
but  the  strongest  convictions  of  the  propriety  of  my  course  could 
have  induced  me  to  do,  my  mind  was  irrevocably  made  up.  And 
so  I  rose  to  depart,  expressing  the  hope  that  our  personal  and 
political  relations  might  be  in  future  tlie  same  as  if  I  were  in  his 
Government. 

"As  I  left  the  room  he  said,  'Lady  Palmerston  receives  to- 
morrow evening  at  ten  ? '  To  which  I  instantly  replied,  '  I  shall 
be  happy  to  be  allowed  to  present  myself  to  her.'  '  I  shall  be 
very  glad  if  you  will,'  was  his  answer,  and  so  we  parted. 

"The  next  evening  I  was  at  Cambridge  House  for  the  first 
time,  and  found  myself  among  a  crowd  of  fashionables  and  politi- 
cians, and  was  the  lion  of  the  party.  The  women  came  and 
stared  with  their  glasses  at  me,  and  then  brought  their  friends  to 
stare  also.  As  I  came  away,  Jacob  Omnium  and  I  were  squeezed 
into  a  corner  together,  and  he  remarked,  '  You  are  the  greatest 
political  monster  that  ever  was  seen  in  this  house.  There  never 
was  before  seen  such  a  curiosity  as  a  man  who  refused  a  Cabinet 
office  from  Lord  Palmerston,  and  then  came  to  visit  him  here. 
Why,  there  are  not  half-a-dozen  men  in  all  that  crowd  that  would 
not  jump  at  the  offer,  and  believe  themselves  quite  as  fit  as  you 
to  be  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade.' 

"  I  never  had  before  so  much  annoyance  to  my  feelings  as  in 
this  matter.  To  be  pressed  by  nearly  all  my  friends  to  take  a 
course  which  I  felt  from  the  first  moment  to  be  impossible,  was 
a  most  painful  ordeal  to  go  through.      I  don't  remember  any 


iET.  55.]  THE  NEW  MINISTRY.  467 

political  occurrence  which  ever  before  made  me  ill.  This  has 
really  upset  my  physical  health.  However,  I  hope  my  friends 
will  on  reflection  do  me  justice,  and  believe  that  I  acted  consci- 
entiously. Certainly  all  the  ordinary  motives  of  human  nature 
would  have  led  me  to  come  to  quite  another  conclusion." 

This  conclusion  caused  deep  chagrin  to  many,  perhaps  to  most, 
of  those  with  whom  he  had  been  most  closely  associated.  His 
friends  in  the  north  were  excited  and  elated  by  the  circumstance 
that  one  of  their  own  number,  a  middle-class  manufacturer,  had 
at  length  penetrated  the  sacred  enclosure  of  the  oligarchy.  In 
France  all  the  best  men  were  infinitely  delighted  by  the  honor 
that  had  been  paid  to  one  to  whom  they  were  accustomed  to  look 
up  as  the  champion  of  progress  and  political  morality.  They 
dreamed  that  his  presence  in  the  Cabinet  would  be  a  guaranty 
for  conciliatory  ideas  in  the  Government.  They  were  greatly 
disappointed  at  the  issue.  M.  Chevalier  accepted  Cobden's  rea- 
sons ;  but  he  protested  against  any  absolute  and  systematic 
resolution  on  Cobden's  part  never  to  take  office.  "  When  a  man 
has  mixed  himself  up  in  public  affairs,"  he  said,  "  with  so  much 
superiority  and  success  as  you  have  had,  then  the  public  has  a 
certain  claim  upon  him,  and  the  exercise  of  this  claim  is  the 
demand  that  he  shall  take  part  in  the  government  of  the  couu- 
try" 

There  was  one  eminent  man,  however,  who  earnestly  approved 
of  the  step  that  had  been  taken.  Mr.  Bright  declared  that  he 
had  never  been  more  clear  of  anything  than  that  Cobden  looked 
at  the  matter  in  a  true  light;  and  he  thought  that  a  few  months 
would  prove  this  to  be  so.  We  now  know  that  Mr.  Bright's 
sagacity  was  not  at  fault.  Almost  from  the  first  the  new  Cabinet 
espoused  the  policy  of  suspicion  and  alarm,  and  within  the  few 
months  of  which  Mr.  Bright  had  spoken,  we  shall  find  Cobden 
writing  to  Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord  John,  with  a  vehemence  of 
protest  and  conviction  which  he  could  under  no  circumstances 
have  controlled,  and  which  would  have  made  his  position  in  the 
Government  desperate.  It  is  true  that  to  one  powerful  member 
of  that  Cabinet  its  military  policy,  now  and  after,  was  as  abhor- 
rent as  it  was  to  Cobden-  himself;  who  wrestled  with  his  con- 
science by  day  and  by  night  as  to  the  morality  of  his  position  ; 
and  who  only  escaped  from  his  own  reprobation  by  the  hope  that 
in  a  balance  of  evils  he  had  chosen  the  course  which  led  to  the 
less  of  them.  If  Cobden  had  been  sitting  by  Mr.  Gladstone's 
side  at  the  council  table  during  the  first  half  of  1860,  would  they 
together  have  been  able  to  resist  Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord  John 
Eussell,  supported  by  the  body  of  the  Cabinet,  and  encouraged 
by  the  excited  suspicions  of  the  great  bulk  of  the  nation  ?  To 
put  the  question  is  to  answer  it.      Lord  Palmerston  was  quite 


y 


V 


468  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1859. 

strong  enough  at  that  moment  to  do  without  Cobden,  and  even 
without  Mr.  Gladstone,  if  Mr.  Gladstone,  yielding  to  a  moral 
pressure  which,  as  we  shall  see,  Cobden  unsparingly  applied  to 
him  when  the  time  came,  had  refused  to  remain  an  accessory, 
and  had  left  the  Government.  If  Cobden  had  taken  office  at 
[ftlidsummer,  he  would  certainly  have  been  out  of  it  by  Christ- 
mas. ,^ 

Beneath  solid  considerations  of  this  kind,  there  was  probabljr 
an  unspoken  sense  of  a  loss  of  personal  dignity  and  self-respect 
that  would  follow  official  subordination  to  a  Minister  of  whom 
he  had  thought  and  spoken  so  ill  as  he  had  thought  and  spoken 
of  Lord  Palmerston.  When  Macaulay  supposed  in  the  crisis  of 
1845  that  there  was  a  chance  of  his  being  invited  to  take  office 
under  Sir  Robert  Peel,  he  said :  "  After  the  language  which  I 
have  held  respecting  Peel,  and  which  I  am  less  than  ever  disposed 
to  retract,  I  feel  tliat  I  cannot  without  a  loss  of  personal  dignity, 
and  without  exposing  myself  to  suspicions  and  insinuations  that 
would  be  insupportable  to  me,  hold  any  situation  under  him."  ^ 
There  is  always  sure  to  be  too  little  ratlier  than  too  much  of  this 
honorable  sensibility  in  public  life.  Cobden  was  perfectly  justi- 
fied in  disclaiming  all  personal  feeling  about  Lord  Palmerston, 
but  his  repugnance  to  the  sentiments,  traditions,  and  methods  of 
which  Palmerston  was  the  representative,  was  the  deepest  part 
of  his  nature,  and  it  was  ineradicable.  The  instinct  was  surely 
sound  which  told  him  that  something  would  he  lost  to  the  integ- 
rity of  his  political  character  and  conscience,  if  he  allowed  the 
seeming  expediency  of  the  hour  to  tempt  him  into  an  alliance 
with  a  system  that  he  had  always  denounced,  and  with  men  who 
had  all  their  lives  been  committed  to  it  heart  and  soul.  Other 
people  would  in  the  long  run  have  felt  the  same  thing  about  him. 
The  moral  influence  of  character  is  the  most  delicate  of  all  forces. 
It  is  affected  by  subtle  and  almost  imperceptible  agencies,  of 
which  logic  is  far  too  rough  an  instrument  to  take  any  account. 
The  idea  which  men  had,  and  still  have,  of  Cobden's  simplicity, 
independence,  and  conviction,  would  inevitably  have  been  tar- 
nished if  he  had  accepted  a  post  under  one,  to  whom  the  beliefs 
and  the  language  of  a  lifetime  made  him  the  typical  antagonist. 

This  was  what  was  in  Cobden's  mind  when  he  said,  "  I  have  a 
liorror  of  losing  my  individuality,  which  is  to  me  as  existence 
itself"  His  position  in  the  League  had  shown  that  nobody  was 
less  open  than  he  to  the  charge  of  inability  to  act  with  others,  — 
that  fatal  sign  of  mediocre  capacity.  But  a  more  fatal  sign  of  a 
worse  moral  mediocrity  is  the  ability  to  act  with  the  first  comer. 
Cobden  was  of  all  men  the  most  stanch  and  most  flexible  mem- 

1  Trevelyan's  Life,  ii.  163. 


,Et.55.]  the  FRENCH  TREATY.  469 

ber  of  an  alliance,  but  he  was  scnipulously  careful  in  choosing 
who  his  allies  should  be.  He  was  right  in  thinking  that  he 
should  not  find  one  after  his  own  heart  either  in  Lord  Palmer- 
ston,  or  among  many  of  the  colleagues  with  whom  Palmerston 
was  likely  to  provide  him. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

THE  FRENCH  TREATY. 

In  the  summer  of  1859  M.  Michel  Chevalier  paid  a  visit  to  Eng- 
land, which  led  to  one  of  the  most  important  chapters  in  the  life       . 
of  Cobden,  as  well  as  to  a  very  important  episode  in  the  relations  V 
between  England  and  France.     To  M.  Chevalier,  Free  Trade  was  \/ 
an  article  of  religious  conviction.     In  his  early  manhood  he  had 
been  one  of  that  truly  remarkable  band  of  men  who  between  1830 
and  1840  devoted  themselves  to  the  principles  of  Saint  Simon,  to 
propagating  them  in  every  country  from  the  Seine  to  the  Nile,  and 
to  carrying  them  out  in  their  own  lives  and  persons  with  the  fer- 
vid enthusiasm  of  the  first  followers  of  Saint  Francis.     It  was 
they  who  first  succeeded  in  setting  industrial  questions  before 
political  ones  in  French  opinion ;  and  though  their  organization 
split  upon  the  rock  of  certain  theocratic  fantasies,  the  wide  social 
views  connected  with  it  remained  deeply  stamped  on  their  minds. 
They  made  a  definite  impression  in  France,  and  prepared  tlie  way 
for  the  events  of  1848.    So  early  as  1832  M.  Chevalier  had  shown 
the  bias  of  his  views  by  a  paper  on  the  Mediterranean  system,  ^ 
proposing  the  construction  of  railways  throughout  Europe  on  a 
scale  which  then  seemed  chimerical  en ouoh.     In  this  he  dwelt 

o 

upon  the  facilities  that  would  be  offered  for  travelling  from  one 
country  to  another,  and  how  these  facilities  "  would  speedily  - 
break  down 'the  barriers  of  ancient  prejudice,  remove  hereditary 
animosities,  and  firmly  cement  nation  to  nation  in  a  lasting 
peace."  ^  The  Suez  Canal  was  another  favorite  idea  with  these 
far-seeing  men ;  for  one  of  the  most  striking  things  about  them 
was  that  they  united  to  their  mystic  enthusiasm,  as  their  lives 
afterwards  proved,  practical  faculties  of  the  highest  and  most  val- 
uable kind.  Free  exchange  exactly  fitted  in  with  their  notions  j 
of  promoting  international  union  by  increasing  the  pacific  inter- 
course of  nations. 

^  See  Mr.  A.  J.  Booth's  Saint  Simon  and  Saint  Simonism  (Longman,  1876), 
p.  169  —  an  excellent  account  of  an  extraordinary  movement. 


y 


470  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1859. 

In  the  session  of  1859  Mr.  Bright  in  a  speech  in  the  House  of 
Commons  incidentally  asked  why,  instead  of  lavishing  the  national 
substance  in  armaments,  they  did  not  go  to  the  French  Emperor 
and  attempt  to  persuade  him  to  allow  his  people  to  trade  freely 
with  ours.  ^  M.  Chevalier,  after  reading  this  speech,  was  inspired 
by  the  idea  of  a  Commercial  Treaty  between  England  and  France, 
and  he  wrote  to  Cobden  in  this  sense.  Coming  to  England  shortly 
afterwards,  he  found  that  Cobden  had  arranged,  for  family  reasons, 
to  pass  a  portion  of  the  winter  in  Paris.  He  immediately  saw  an 
opening,  and  urged  Cobden  to  seize  the  opportunity  for  converting 
the  Emperor,  as  fifteen  years  earlier  he  had  so  powerfully  aided 
in  converting  the  English  public,  to  the  policy  of  Free  Trade,  and 
to  as  near  an  execution  of  that  policy  as  the  circumstances  of  a 
country  still  in  the  stage  of  prohibition  could  permit. 

These  ideas  made  so  strong  an  impression  on  Cobden  that  he 
grew  eager  to  discuss  them  with  the  only  statesman  in  the  high 
official  world  with  whom  he  felt  conscious  of  deep  moral  and 
political  sympathy.  What  made  the  idea  of  a  Treaty  possible, 
moreover,  was  that  in  the  following  year  terminable  annuities  to 
the  amount  of  upwards  of  two  millions  would  fall  in,  and  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  would  have  that  amount  of  taxation 
to  deal  with.  If  the  Minister  could  be  induced  to  entertain  tlie 
idea  of  a  Treaty,  he  would  by  means  of  such  a  surplus  be  able  to 
make  that  reduction  in  the  duties  on  French  articles  which  the 
French  would  regard,  and  insist  upon,  as  a  price  for  a  transforma- 
tion of  their  own  prohibitive  system.  In  the  early  part  of  Sep- 
tember, Cobden  paid  a  visit  to  Hawarden,  and  there  he  opened 
his  mind  to  Mr.  Gladstone.  They  were  both  of  them  thoroughly 
alive  to  the  objections  to  which  on  strictly  economic  grounds 
treaties  of  commerce  must  always  be  open.  They  both  felt  it  to 
be  perfectly  true,  if  economic  rules  were  never  under  any  circum- 
stances to  be  contravened,  that,  as  Mr.  Bright  had  already  said,  it 
was  our  business  to  look  to  our  own  tariffs,  and  to  release  French 
products  from  the  duties  that  prevented  our  trading  with  France ; 
and  this  without  any  stipulation  as  to  what  France  should  do  in 
return.  But  then  they  felt  that  the  occasion  was  one  Vhich  could 
not  be  judged  in  this  simple  way.  An  economic  principle  by  itself, 
as  all  sensible  men  have  now  learnt,  can  never  be  decisive  of  any- 
thing in  the -mixed  and  complex  sphere  of  practice.  Neither 
Cobden  nor  Mr.  Gladstone  could  resist  the  force  of  M.  Chevalier's 
emphatic  assurance,  that  in  no  other  way  could  the  French  tariff 

1  The  idea  was  in  the  air.  In  a  conversation  with  Lord  John  Enssell,  Count 
Persigny  expressed  a  wish,  as  an  earnest  of  the  sincerity  of  the  Emperor's  desire 
for  peace,  for  a  Commercial  Treaty  between  Great  Britain  and  France,  by  which 
France  might  be  enabled  to  lower  her  protective  duties.  —  Martin's  Life  of  tJie 
Prince  Consort,  iv.  470. 


^T.55.]  THE  FRENCH  TREATY.  471 

be  altered  in  the  direction  of  Free  Trade  than  through  a  diplo- 
matic act,  that  is  to  say,  a  commercial  treaty  with  England.  The 
Emperor,  moreover,  in  spite  of  his  absolutist  system,  was  practi- 
cally powerless  to  reduce  his  duties,  unless  the  English  Govern- 
ment gave  him  the  help  of  a  corresponding  movement  on  their 
side. 

Mr.  Gladstone  discerned  both  the  opportunity  which  such  a 
movement  would  afford  for  continuing  the  great  work  of  tarifl" 
reform,  and  the  strong  influence  that  a  commercial  treaty  would 
have  upon  the  violent  and  dangerous  perturbations  in  the  political 
sentiment  of  the  two  nations  towards  one  another.  His  powerful 
imagination  was  kindled,  and  he  had  the  first  dawn  of  that  fine 
vision  which  he  revealed  to  the  public  in  the  famous  budget 
speech  of  the  following  February.  He  was,  in  fact,  continuing  the 
work  which  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  begun  in  1842,  along  the  very 
lines  which  Peel  had  then  expressly  laid  down.  In  the  case  of 
wine  and  brandy,  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  said  that  he  did  not  reduce 
the  duty,  because  he  hoped  that  they  might  employ  these  duties 
"  as  instruments  of  negotiation,  with  a  view  of  effecting  a  reduction 
in  the  duties  imposed  by  other  countries  on  the  produce  of  our 
own  country."  "  I  am  not  disposed,"  Peel  said,  "  to  carry  too  far 
that  principle  of  withholding  from  ourselves  the  benefits  of  reduc- 
tion of  duties  in  order  to  force  other  nations  to  act  in  a  reciprocal 
manner,  and  in  many  cases  we  weakened  the  effect  of  instruments 
we  held  in  our  own  hands  by  reducing  the  duty  of  articles  relative 
to  which  negotiations  might  have  been  entered  into.  Our  general 
rule  was  that  in  cases  where  the  articles  were  elements  of  manu- 
facture, or  where  there  was  risk  from  smuggling,  we  took  to  our- 
selves the  advantage  likely  to  arise  from  a  reduction  of  duty  on 
these  articles ;  but  in  others,  wine  for  example,  we  made  no  reduc- 
tion of  duty,  and  intend  to  make  no  reduction  of  duty,  in  the  hope 
that  we  shall  induce  other  countries  to  give  to  us  an  equivalent 
advantage."  ^  The  discussion  therefore  between  Mr.  Gladstone 
and  Cobden  at  Hawarden  in  1859  turned  upon  the  means  of  real- 
izing the  hope  then  expressed  by  Sir  Robert  Peel,  in  1843,  and 
expressed  by  him  not  casually,  but  as  an  element  in  a  deliberate 
policy. 

Cobden's  first  suggestion  had  been  that,  as  he  was  about  to 
spend  a  part  of  the  winter  in  Paris,  he  might  perhaps  be  of  use 
to  Mr.  Gladstone  in  the  way  of  inquiry.  Conversation  expanded 
this  modest  proposal  into  something  more  definite  and  more  ener- 
getic. It  was  thought  that,  if  he  had  the  tacit  and  informal 
authority  of  the  British  Government,  he  might  put  himself  into 
communication  with  the  Emperor  and  his  Ministers,  might  bring 

1  Feb.  17,  1843. 


472  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1859. 

to  bear  upon  them  his  well-tried  powers  of  persuasion  and  conver- 
sion, and  might  work  out  with  them  the  scheme  of  a  treaty  which 
would  give  an  occasion  for  a  great  fiscal  reform  in  both  countries, 
and  in  both  countries  would  produce  a  solid  and  sterling  pacifica- 
tion of  feelings. 

This  was  the  plan  with  which  Cobden  quitted  Hawarden.  He 
^  was  not  confident  of  success,  for  he  knew  that  he  would  have  to 
deal  with  governments,  and  he  had  little  faith  in  either  the  cour- 
age or  the  disinterestedness  of  governments.  When  he  started 
on  the  expedition,  he  had  written  in  no  sanguine  vein  to  Mr. 
Bright :  —  "  Governments  seem  as  a  rule  to  be  standing  conspira- 
cies to  rob  and  bamboozle  people,  and  why  should  that  of  Louis 
Napoleon  be  an  exception  ?  The  more  I  see  of  the  rulers  of  the 
world,"  he  added,  in  amplification  of  a  famous  saying,  "  the  less 
of  wisdom  or  greatness  do  I  find  necessary  for  the  government  of 
mankind." 

When  he  reached  London  he  found  that  the  Ministers  had 
been  summoned  for  a  Cabinet  Council.  He  called  upon  Lord 
.Palmerston  and  Lord  John  Kussell,  and  discussed  M.  Chevalier's 
/  notions  with  them.  "  It  is  not  easy,"  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Bright,  "  to 
^  interest  men  whose  foreign  policy  has  been  running  in  such  dif- 
ferent grooves,  in  questions  of  political  economy  and  tariffs.  But 
I  spoke  frankly  to  both  of  them  as  to  the  state  of  our  relations 
with  France,  and  disparaged  the  value  of  an  alliance  in  China,  or 
>y  any  other  pretended  entente  cordiale,  whilst  we  were  keeping  up 
twenty-six  millions  of  armaments,  principally  as  a  defence  against 
France." 

"  From  what  I  hear,"  he  continued,  "  the  Cabinet  is  concerned 
with  the  mighty  question  whether  France  is  to  take  a  bit  of  terri- 
tory from  Morocco.  We  are,  I  suppose,  to  protest  from  Gibraltar 
against  anything  so  shocking  to  us  as  picking  and  stealing  our 
neighbor's  territory  going  on  within  view  of  that  reputable  pos- 
session of  ours.  We  have  taken  a  whole  empire  from  a  Mahome- 
tan sovereign  in  Asia,  and  we  are  horrified  at  France  taking  a 
province  in  the  same  latitude  from  a  Mahometan  sovereign  in 
Africa.  For  my  part,  if  France  took  the  whole  of  Africa,  I  do  not 
see  what  harm  she  would  do  us  or  anybody  else  save  herself"  ^ 

It  will  one  day  seem  incredible  that  two  keen  and  patriotic 
statesmen  of  the  eminence  which  Lord  Palmerston  and  Lord  John 
Kussell  held  in  the  public  esteem,  should  at  this  stage  of  our  his- 

1  The  source  of  the  uneasiness  in  Downing  Street  was  the  dispute  between  Spain 
and  Morocco,  as  to  the  boundaries  of  the  Spanish  territory  round  Ceuta.  "It  is 
plain,"  Lord  Palmerston  wrote  to  Lord  John  Eussell,  "  that  France  aims  through 
Spain  at  getting  fortified  points  on  each  side  of  the  Gut  of  Gibraltar"  —  with  tlie 
ultimate  view  of  "shutting  us  out  of  the  Mediterranean."  (Ashley's  Life,  ii.  374.) 
The  inference  as  to  the  designs  of  France  is  a  masterpiece  of  the  perverse  ingenuity 
of  the  Palmerstouian  policy  of  alarm. 


J:t.55.]  the  FRENCH  TREATY.  473 

toiy  have  so  misconceived  the  relative  importance  of  things,  as  to 
think  the  very  remotest  doings  of  any  foreign  government  a  mat- 
ter of  real  and  primary  importance,  and  an  extension  of  our  trade, 
however  vast  it  might  promise  to  be,  a  matter  so  purely  secondary 
as  hardly  to  be  worth  an  hour's  serious  attention.  At  a  Lord 
Mayor's  dinner,  or  at  a  meeting  at  Manchester,  each  of  them  often 
uttered  the  stereotyped  sentences  about  commercial  prosperity 
being  the  basis  of  British  greatness.  But  neither  of  them  had 
what  religious  writers  call  a  living  sense  of  the  extent  to  which 
such  words  were  true.  They  were  really  thinking  all  the  time  of 
strong  despatches  and  spirited  representations.  The  commercial 
and  industrial  movements  of  our  own  country,  and  the  relations 
of  government  to  them,  were  treated  as  objects  for  men  of  the 
third  or  fourth  order  in  the  political  system.  What  is  curious  is, 
that  while  devoting  such  passionate  attention  to  foreign  affairs, 
no  men  ever  seem  to  take  so  little  pains  as  ministers  of  this 
stamp  to  keep  themselves  abundantly  and  accurately  informed  of 
what  really  goes  on  in  foreign  countries,  what  forces  are  at  work 
under  the  trite  words  of  diplomatic  agents,  what  amount  of  sub- 
stance throws  those  shadows  about  which  they  write  and  speak 
so  many  busy  sentences. 

Although,  however,  he  received  no  cheerful  encouragement  from  / 
either  the  Prime  Minister  or  the  Foreign  Secretary,  Cobden  wag/ 
not  forbidden  to  proceed  on  the  mission  that  he  had  volunteered. 
On  October  18  he  arrived  in  Paris,  and  on  the  23d  he  went  to  see 
Lord  Cowley  at  Chantilly.  They  had  a  long  conversation,  in  the 
course  of  which  the  English  Ambassador  gave  the  Emperor  a  high 
character  for  straightforwardness,  and  a  strict  adherence  to  his 
word  in  all  his  engagements  with  Lord  Cowley  himself  Two 
days  later,  Cobden,  M.  Chevalier,  and  M.  Kouher  dined  together. 
The  Minister  had  been  very  uneasy  lest  the  fact  of  his  interview 
with  Cobden  should  get  abroad,  and  I  have  heard  that  the  dinner 
was  planned  with  as  much  secrecy  and  discretion  as  if  they  had 
been  three  housebreakers  under  the  surveillance  of  the  police. 

M.  Eouher,  who  was  then  Minister  of  Commerce,  professed 
strong  Free-trade  views,  and  was  thoroughly  won  round  by  Cob- 
den's  exposition  of  the  well-known  list  of  Protectionist  subterfuges. 
He  made  no  secret  that  it  was  the  Emperor  only  who  on  every 
question  gave  the  initiative  to  his  Minister.  If  he  could  be  in- 
duced to  reform  his  customs  duties,  M.  Rouher  would  be  a  very 
willing  instrument  in  promoting  his  plans.  The  next  step,  and 
the  greatest,  was  to  convince  the  Emperor.  The  Minister  under- 
took to  procure  an  invitation,  and  two  days  later  (October  27)  Cob- 
den went  to  St.  Cloud  to  have  his  first  audience.  It  was  not  the 
first  time  that  they  had  seen  one  another.  Cobden  had  met  Louis 
Napoleon  at  breakfast  at  Mr.  Monckton  Milnes's  three  days  after 


v 


474  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1859. 

the  escape  from  Ham  in  1846.  He  had  then  set  the  Prince  down 
for  a  very  mediocre  person  indeed.  He  did  his  best  to  remember 
that  he  was  now  talking  to  quite  a  different  personage,  but  was 
not  sure  that  he  always  succeeded.  Cobden  kept  a  full  journal  of 
the  events  of  the  negotiation,  and  the  following  is  his  account  of 
the  first  interview  with  the  convert  who  was  of  paramount  im- 
portance :  — 

"After  a  few  remarks  upon  the  subject  of  the  improvements 
in  Paris,  and  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  and  after  he  had  ex- 
pressed his  regret  at  my  not  having  entered  the  Ministry  of  Lord 
Palmerston,  the  Emperor  alluded  to  the  state  of  feeling  in  Eng- 
land, and  expressed  his  regret  that  notwithstanding  he  had  for  ten 
years  given  every  possible  proof  of  his  desire  to  preserve  the  friend- 
ship of  the  British  people,  the  press  had  at  last  defeated  his  pur- 
pose, and  now  the  relations  of  the  two  countries  seemed  to  be 
worse  than  ever.  He  appealed  to  me  if  .he  had  ever  done  one  act 
to  justify  the  manner  in  which  he  was  assailed  by  our  press.  I 
candidly  told  him  that  I  thought  the  Governments  of  both  coun- 
tries were  to  blame.  He  asked  what  he  could  do  more  than  he 
had  already  done  to  promote  the  friendly  relations  of  the  two 
countries.^  This  led  to  the  question  of  Free  Trade,  and  I  urged 
many  arguments  in  favor  of  removing  those  obstacles  w^hich  pre- 
vented the  two  countries  from  being  brought  into  closer  depend- 

1  In  the  letter  which  he  wrote  on  the  occasion  to  Lord  Palmerston  (Oct.  29,  1859), 
Cobden  gave  a  rather  fuller  account  of  this  preliminary  part  of  the  conversation  :  — 
*'The  Emperor  began  the  conversation  after  a  few  introductory  remarks,  by  com- 
plaining of  the  English  Press.  I  told  him  that  I  had  myself  been  accused  of  every 
crime  almost  by  the  Press  (including  an  attempt  at  murder),  and  that  I  had  learnt 
to  laugh  at  it.  He  continued  this  topic  by  asking  me  to  point  out  a  single  act  dur- 
ing the  ten  years  he  had  been  in  power,  which  had  not  been  dictated  by  a  desire  to 
stand  well  with  England,  and  to  keep  the  two  countries  in  a  state  of  harmony  and 
friendship  ;  but  the  Press  had  completely  defeated  his  object.  After  reminding  him 
that  I  had  blamed,  both  in  Parliament  and  in  public  meetings,  the  attacks  made  in 
England  on  the  Government  of  France,  I  said  that  he  should  bear  in  mind  that  Ids 
name,  which  had  such  a  charm  in  the  cottages  of  France,  had  still  a  sound  which 
carried  a  traditional  alarm  into  our  houses,  and  that  this  feeling  was  worked  upon 
by  those  who  for  their  own  ends  persuaded  the  people  that  he  intended  to  repeat  the 
career  of  his  uncle.  With  some  excuses,  I  ventured  to  add  that  the  way  in  which 
he  had  entered  on  the  war  in  Italy,  without  a  previous  exjjose  des  motifs,  had  given 
great  force  to  their  persuasion.  He  intennipted  me  by  saying  that  he  had  explained 
his  reasons.  I  told  him  that  what  I  meant  was  that  he  had  not  appealed  to  tlie 
world  with  a  manifesto  of  his  grievances  and  objects,  and  that  if  he  had  done  so, 
from  what  I  knew  of  the  opinion  in  England  and  America,  where  the  Austrian  Gov- 
ernment had  hardly  a  friend,  the  feeling  would  have  been  so  universally  in  his  favor 
that  a  war  would  not  have  been  necessary.  But  the  suddenness  and  secrecy  witli 
which  this  great  war  was  entered  upon  alarmed  people  lest  the  same  thing  should 
be  repeated.  After  some  further  conversation  about  the  state  of  feeling,  which  I 
admitted  was  very  bad,  if  not  perilous,  in  England,  and  which  he  said  was  brought 
to  such  a  state  in  France  that  he  seemed  to  be  almost  the  only  man  friendly  to  Eng- 
land left,  I  expressed  an  opinion,  very  frankly,  that  the  Governments  of  both  coun- 
tries, professing  as  they  did  to  be  friendly,  would  be  responsible,  if  not  blamable, 
were  nothing  done  to  try  to  put  an  end  to  this  state  of  things." 


^T.55.]  THE   FRENCH   TREATY.  475 

ence  on  one  another.  He  expressed  himself  as  friendly  to  this 
policy,  but  alluded  to  the  great  difficulties  in  his  way ;  said  he 
had  made  an  effort  by  admitting  iron  in  bond  for  ship-building, 
which  he  was  obliged  to  alter  again,  and  spoke  of  the  sliding 
scale  on  corn  which  had  been  re-imposed  after  it  had  expired. 
I  spoke  of  the  opportuneness  of  the  present  moment  for  making  a 
simultaneous  change  in  the  English  and  French  tariffs,  as  there 
was  a  prospect  of  a  surplus  of  revenue  next  year,  owing  to  the  ex- 
piry of  our  terminable  annuities,  and  that  Mr.  Gladstone  was  very 
desirous  to  make  this  surplus  available  for  reducing  duties  on 
French  commodities.  Louis  Napoleon  said  he  had  a  majority  of 
his  Chambers  quite  opposed  to  Free  Trade,  and  that  they  would 
not  pass  a  decided  measure  ;  that  by  the  constitution  he  could  alter 
the  tariff  by  a  decree,  if  it  were  part  of  a  treaty  with  a  foreign 
power ;  and  he  asked  me  whether  England  would  enter  into  a 
commercial  treaty  with  him.  I  explained  that  we  could  give  no 
exclusive  privileges  to  any  nation ;  that  we  could  simultaneously 
make  reductions  in  our  tariffs ;  and  the  alterations  might  be  in- 
serted in  a  treaty,  but  that  our  tariff  must  be  equally  applicable 
to  all  countries.  He  said  he  was  under  a  pledge  not  to  abolish 
the  prohibitive  system  in  France  and  substitute  moderate  duties, 
previous  to  1861.  I  told  him  that  I  saw  no  obstacle  in  this  to  a 
treaty  being  entered  into  next  spring,  for  that  the  moral  effect 
would  be  the  same  even  if  the  full  operation  of  the  new  duties 
did  not  come  into  play  for  two  or  three  years.  He  asked  me  to 
let  him  know  what  reductions  could  be  made  in  our  tariff  upon  ^^^ 
articles  affecting  his  country,  which  I  promised  to  do.  He  then 
inquired  what  I  should  advise  him  to  do  in  regard  to  the  French 
tariff  I  said  I  should  attack  one  article  of  great  and  universal 
necessity,  as  I  had  done  in  England,  when  I  confined  all  my  ef- 
forts to  the  abolition  of  the  corn-laws,  knowing  that  when  that 
clef-de-voute  was  removed,  the  whole  system  would  fall.  In 
France,  the  great  primary  want  was  cheap  iron,  which  is  the  daily  y 
bread  of  all  industries,  and  I  should  begin  by  abolishing  the  duty  ^ 
on  iron  and  coal,  and  then  I  should  be  in  a  better  position  for  ap- 
proaching all  the  other  industries  ;  that  I  would,  if  necessary,  pay 
an  indemnity  in  some  shape  to  the  iron-masters,  and  thus  be  en-' 
abled  to  abolish  their  protection  immediately — a  course  which  I 
should  not  contemplate  following  with  any  other  commodity  but 
iron  and  coal.  He  spoke  of  the  danger  of  throwing  men  out  of 
work,  and  I  tried  by  a  variety  of  arguments  to  convince  him,  es- 
pecially by  a  reference  to  the  example  of  England,  that  the  effect 
of  a  reduction  of  duties  is  to  increase,  not  diminish,  the  demand 
for  labor.  I  showed  that  in  England  we  had  nmch  machinery 
standing  idle  in  consequence  of  the  want  of  workmen  at  the  pres- 
ent time ;  and  in  order  to  allay  his  fears  of  an  inundation  of  Brit- 


476  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1859. 

ish  products,  to  throw  his  own  people  out  of  work,  I  explained 
that  there  was  not  an  ounce  of  our  productions  which  was  not  al- 
ready bespoken,  and  that  it  would  take  a  long  time  to  increase 
largely  our  investment  of  capital,  whilst  it  was  impossible  to  pro- 
cure any  considerable  addition  to  our  laborers.  On  my  giving 
him  a  description  of  the  reforms  effected  by  Sir  Robert  Peel,  and 
the  great  reverence  in  which  his  name  is  held,  he  said,  '  I  am 
charmed  and  flattered  at  the  idea  of  performing  a  similar  work  in 
my  country ;  but,'  he  added,  '  it  is  very  difficult  in  France  to  make 
reforms ;  we  make  revolutions  in  France,  not  reforms/ 

"  The  Emperor  is  short  in  stature  and  very  undignified ;  I 
never  saw  a  person  with  fewer  heroic  traits  in  his  appearance 
and  manner.  But  there  is  nothing  harsh  or  even  cold  in  the 
expression  of  his  countenance.  His  eye  is  not  pleasant  ,at  first, 
but  it  warms  and  moistens  with  conversation,  and  gives  you  the 
impression  that  he  is  capable  of  generous  emotions. 

"  The  approach  to  the  Palace  of  Saint  Cloud  was  thronged  with 
military,  both  horse  and  foot.  I  entered  the  building,  and  passed 
through  an  avenue  of  liveried  lacqueys  in  the  hall,  from  which  I 
ascended  the  grand  staircase,  guarded  at  the  top  by  sentries,  and 
I  passed  through  a  series  of  apartments  hung  with  gorgeous 
tapestry,  each  room  being  in  charge  of  servants  higher  in  rank  as 
they  come  nearer  to  the  person  of  the  sovereign.  As  I  surveyed 
this  gorgeous  spectacle,  I  found  my  thoughts  busy  with  the  recol- 
lection of  a  very  different  scene  which  I  had  looked  upon  a  few 
months  before  at  Washington,  when  I  was  the  guest  of  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  a  plain  man  in  a  black  suit,  living  in 
comparative  simplicity,  without  a  sentry  at  his  door  or  a  livery 
servant  in  his  house." 

In  writing  of  this  important  interview  to  Mr.  Bright,  Cobden 
says  (Nov.  17,  1859):  — 

"  I  had  a  full  hour's  private  talk  at  St.  Cloud  with  Louis  Napo- 
leon. He  knew  I  had  taken  the  unpopular  line  in  opposing  the 
invasion  cry.  He  is  not  unmindful  of  such  acts  of  fairness,  and 
I  felt  myself  not  only  tolerated  but  encouraged  to  talk,  with  just 
as  much  frankness  as  I  could  to  you  or  any  other  equal.  In 
•reply  to  his  strong  complaints  against  the  English  press,  I  told 
him  that  the  course  he  had  taken  in  beginning  the  Italian  war 
suddenly,  and  without  publishing  a  manifesto  of  his  grievances  to 
the  world,  had  alarmed  the  public  mind  of  Europe ;  that  not  only 
England  but  Germany  was  arming  to  the  teeth ;  and  that  this  wrs 
all  in  reference  to  himself,  and  from  the  fear  that  he  contemplated 
repeating  the  career  of  his  uncle.  I  told  him  that  there  was  but 
one  way  of  removing  this  impression,  and  that  was  by  a  bold  meas- 
ure of  commercial  reform ;  that  there  was  only  a  choice  between 
the  policy  of  Napoleon  I.  and  the  policy  of  Sir  Eobert  Peel.     On 


^T.55.]  THE   FRENCH   TREATY.  477 

this  point,  T  used  every  argument,  to  make  it  appear  that  it  was  his 
interest  to  begin  the  work  at  once ;  quoted  the  complete  success 
of  our  experiment ;  and  pointed  to  tlie  fame  of  Sir  Robert  Peel, 
and  the  veneration  in  which  his  memory  was  held,  as  stimulants 
for  his  honorable  ambition.  I  found  his  sympathies  strongly  with  y 
us,  but  he  is  ignorant  of  practical  details,  and  he  has  consequently 
a  great  dread  of  the  protectionists.  You  may  be  sure  I  spared  no 
pains  to  take  the  latter  gentry  down  in  his  estimation.  I  never 
had  a  better  private  pupil.  He  is  a  good  listener,  and  put  some 
very  pertinent  questions.  The  most  remarkable  fact  respecting 
this  man  is,  that,  whilst  the  press  and  the  popular  sentiment  at- 
tribute to  him  the  most  tortuous  and  deceptive  policy,  all  who 
have  business  with  him,  without  exception,  give  him  the  char- 
acter of  straightforwardness  and  fairness.  This  is  the  testimony 
of  Malmesbury,  Lord  John,  and  Lord  Palmerston,  and  of  Lord 
Cowley  to  a  very  high  degree  indeed.  Then,  turning  to  Kossuth, 
who  had  the  cup  dashed  suddenly  from  his  lips,  by  the  almost 
unaccountable  turn  in  the  affairs  of  the  war  at  Villafranca,  he 
distinctly  told  me  that  Louis  Napoleon  did  not  in  the  slightest 
degree  deceive  or  betray  him.  I  travelled  from  Paris  to  London 
last  week  with  Klapka,  who  was  at  the  headquarters  of  the  war, 
and  he  repeated  the  sentiments  expressed  by  Kossuth.  Klapka 
thinks  Louis  Napoleon  has  genuine  popular  sympathies,  and 
wound  up  his  remarks  on  him  with  the  words,  'II  n'est  pas 
mechant.' " 

The  Emperor  afterwards  expressed  himself  to  M.  Fould  as 
highly  satisfied  with  the  interview.  Cobden,  he  said,  had  given 
him  a  little  courage.  In  describing  this  interview  to  Lord  Palmer- 
ston, Cobden  expressed  a  strong  opinion  that  the  Emperor  was 
more  afraid  than  he  need  have  been,  of  the  protected  interests. 
"  I  have  no  doubt  that,  as  you  say,"  Lord  Palmerston  wrote  in 
reply,  "  the  Emperor  and  his  advisers  greatly  exaggerate  the  re- 
sisting power  of  the  protectionist  classes.  But  the  want  of  moral 
courage  in  Frenchmen  which  you  advert  to,  is  confessed  even 
by  Frenchmen  themselves,  and  it  is  probably  one  cause  of  the 
frequency  of  political  convulsions  in  France."  Napoleon  was  ^ 
open  to  the  impressions  of  political  fervor.  Cobden  produced' 
upon  his  mind  the  same  reinspiriting  effect  which  had  followed 
in  relation  to  his  Italian  policy  from  the  memorable  interview 
with  Cavour  in  the  previous  spring. 

M.  Fould  was  the  person  next  to  be  converted,  and  Cobden 
succeeded  in  persuading  him  that,  instead  of  the  timid  course  of 
replacing  a  policy  of  prohibition  by  a  policy  of  extensive  protec- 
tion, the  Government  would  do  better  boldly  to  embrace  a  large 
reform.  The  protectionists,  he  very  truly  said,  would  offer  as 
much  opposition  to  a  timid  as  to  a  bold  scheme,  while  for  a  small 


478  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1859. 

reform  there  would  be  no  vigorous  popular  sympathy  or  support. 
They  went  over  again  the  whole  question  of  Free  Trade,  M.  Fould 
using  many  of  the  old  fallacies  about  being  inundated  by  British 
goods,  laborers  being  thrown  out  of  work,  and  so  forth.  "  I  had," 
says  Cobden,  "to  give  him  the  first  lessons  in  political  economy." 

A  day  or  two  afterwards  he  received  from  the  Emperor  an  in- 
vitation for  himself  and  his  wife  to  spend  four  days  at  Compiegne. 
He  declined  it  on  the  plea  of  Mrs.  Cobden's  health.  M.  Cheva- 
lier was  very  anxious  that  he  should  go,  and  Cobden  wrote  to  Mr. 
Bright  that  he  was  sorely  tempted  to  accept  the  invitation,  be- 
cause it  would  have  given  him  a  good  opportunity  of  talking  to 
the  Emperor  unreservedly,  and  without  the  risk  of  his  audiences 
being  reported.  It  was  the  Emperor's  custom  to  walk  about  with 
his  guests,  and  chat  with  them  over  his  interminable  cigarettes. 
"  If  I  had  been  sure,"  Cobden  says,  "  of  converting  my  pupil  into 
a  practical  Free  Trader,  I  would  have  gone.  But  if  I  failed,  the 
fact  of  my  having  taken  part  in  those  gay  festivities  would  have 
furnished  a  ready  taunt  of  my  having  been  bought  and  seduced, 
if  I  had  ever  said  a  word  against  a  French  invasion  afterwards. 
So  it  is  better  as  it  is."  ^ 

Ten  days  were  passed  in  discussions  with  M.  Fould,  and  con- 
versations with  M.  Chevalier.  There  were '  many  vacillations, 
and  each  day  brought  its  new  rumor,  for  hope  or  discouragement. 
Cobden's  record  of  some  of  his  interviews  with  the  Minister  is 
worth  reproducing,  because  they  show  the  mind  of  the  French 
Government  in  listening  to  his  arguments,  and  they  show  also 
how  entirely  the  French  Ministers  depended  on  him  for  inspira- 
tion and  guidance  in  their  new  policy. 

Nov.  2.  —  "  M.  Fould  called ;  he  seemed  preoccupied  with  the 
uneasy  and  hostile  state  of  feeling  in  England  against  France. 
He  regretted  that  there  was  no  way  in  which  a  statesman  in 
France  could  make  a  public  statement  in  reply  to  the  speeches 
delivered  at  the  late  Conservative  banquet  at  Liverpool ;  said  some- 
thing must  be  done  to  allay  the  uneasiness  in  the  financial  and 
commercial  world  ;  and  at  all  events,  was  glad  that  the  French 
and  English  Governments  had  come  to  an  understanding  respect- 
ing the  joint  expedition  against  China.^  The  officers  sent  to 
England  to  arrange  this  combination  of  forces  had,  he  said,  com- 
pleted their  plans  satisfactorily  in  conjunction  with  the  British 
authorities.     This  warlike  alliance  has  been  strenuously  sought 

1  To  J.  Bright,  Nov.  20,  1859. 

2  By  the  Treaty  of  1858  the  European  signatories  had  the  right  of  sending 
ambassadors  to  Pekin.  In  June,  1859,  the  English  fleet  conveying  the  envoy  was 
resisted  at  the  mouth  of  the  Pei-Ho.  Without  giving  the  Chinese  an  opportunity 
of  making  reparation,  the  English  and  French  Government  proceeded  to  organize 
a  joint  expedition.  It  was  in  the  course  of  this  (Oct.  6,  1860)  that  the  European 
troops  committed  the  infamy  of  pillaging  and  burning  the  Summer  Palace. 


^T.55.]  THE   FRENCH   TREATY.  479 

for  lately  by  tlie  French  Government  under  the  impression,  as  I 
believe,  that  it  would  tend  to  promote  a  more  amicable  state 
of  feeling  between  the  two  countries.  I  told  him  I  had  great 
doubts  whether  this  expectation  would  be  realized ;  that  the  war 
against  China  would  not  be  popular  in  England ;  and  the  motives 
of  each  party  in  going  into  the  alliance  would  be  certain  to  be 
misinterpreted  by  the  other.  '  Yes,'  he  replied,  *  I  suppose  it  will 
be  said  to  be  a  snare  on  our  part.'  He  then  repeated  the  words, 
'  Something  must  be  done,'  and  he  recurred  at  last,  apparently 
with  no  great  relish,  to  the  subject  of  a  Commercial  Treaty  with 
England. 

"  He  saw  great  difficulties  in  the  way.  How,  when,  and  where 
could  a  negotiation  be  carried  on,  and  with  whom  ?  He  was 
afraid  that  if  a  meeting  between  himself,  the  Minister  of  Com- 
merce, M.  Eouher,  and  myself,  were  to  take  place,  it  could  not 
be  kept  a  secret ;  that  at  present  they  had  concealed  even  from 
M.  Walewski,  the  Foreign  Minister,  the  fact  of  any  conversation 
having  taken  place  between  the  Emperor,  and  themselves,  and 
me.  I  spoke  of  Prince  Napoleon,  whom  M.  Fould  described  as 
quite  a  sincere  opponent  of  Protection,  but  he  added  that  he  was 
very  apt  to  talk  too  freely,  and  that  we  must  be  careful  how  we 
took  him  into  our  counsels.  I  told  him  that,  as  regarded  the 
negotiations,  I  was  prepared  to  go  into  the  preliminary  discus- 
sion of  the  changes  which  should  be  made  in  the  tariffs  of  the 
two  countries. ;  that  I  could,  in  a  short  interview  or  two  with  him 
and  M.  Rouher,  give  them  a  general  idea  as  to  what  I  thought 
ought  to  be  done  by  both  parties,  and  that  if  necessary  I  thought 
I  could  obtain  Lord  Palmerston's  authority  for  acting  in  the 
matter.  He  had  no  objection  to  make  to  this.  He  said  he  was 
to  dine  with  the  Emperor  to-morrow ;  and  all  I  could  gather 
was  that  he  seemed  to  be  in  a  very  timid  and  undecided  state 
of  mind. 

"  Before  parting,  I  alluded  to  the  state  of  uneasiness,  not  only 
in  England  but  on  the  continent,  and  reminded  him  of  the  great 
increase  of  warlike  preparation  which  had  been  going  on  ;  and 
I  expressed  an  opinion  that  a  Bonaparte  being  on  the  throne  of 
France,  who  had  last  spring  invaded  Italy  and  fought  great 
battles,  was  the  cause  of  the  present  feeling  of  mistrust,  and  that 
to  this  fact  alone  was  to  be  attributed  an  augmentation  of  the 
expenditure  for  defensive  armaments  in  Europe  at  this  moment 
to  the  amount  of  twenty  millions  sterling  per  annum.  He  said 
that  nothing  was  farther  from  the  Emperor's  thoughts  than  to 
pursue  a  warlike  policy.  I  remarked,  as  he  was  leaving  the 
room,  that,  so  far  as  I  was  acquainted  with  the  state  of  public 
opinion  in  England,  nothing  would  so  instantaneously  convince 
the  people  there  of  the  Emperor's  pacific  intentions  as  his  enter- 


480  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1859. 

ing  boldly  upon  a  policy  of  commercial  reform,  by  which  he 
would  enable  those,  who,  like  myself,  took  the  unpopular  side  in 
opposing  the  current  of  prejudice  and  hatred  which  was  running 
against  him  in  England,  to  turn  the  tables  on  his  accusers  and 
detractors.  Afterwards  I  called  on  Lord  Cowley,  and  explained 
what  had  passed.  He  was  going  to  dine  to-day  with  M.  Fould. 
The  droll  part  of  these  •  interviews,  besides  the  timidity  of  the 
people,  is  that  here  is  a  government  having  so  little  faith  or  con- 
fidence in  one  another,  that  some  of  its  members  tie  me  down, 
a  perfect  stranger,  to  secrecy  as  against  their  most  elevated 
colleagues ! " 

The  next  day  Cobden  started  for  London,  where  he  remained 
for  a  week,  partly  engaged  in  some  private  business  connected 
with  the  Illinois  Eailway.  He  saw  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  entered 
as  heartily  as  before  into  the  matter.  "  Gladstone,"  he  said  in 
a  letter  to  his  trusted  friend  at  Eochdale,  "  is  really  almost  the 
only  Cabinet  Minister  of  five  years'  standing  who  is  not  afraid 
to  let  his  heart  guide  his  head  a  little  at  times."  He  tried  to  see 
the  Foreign  Secretary,  but  failed.  "  I  doubt,"  he  says,  "  whether 
Lord  John  is  not  just  now  attaching  more  value  to  the  spirited 
turn  of  a  phrase  about  Morocco,  than  to  my  efforts  to  lay  down  a 
commercial  cable  that  shall  bind  these  two  great  countries  together." 
He  called  on  Lord  Palmerston,  and  had  a  conversation  on  the 
state  of  public  feeling  in  France  and  England.  Lord  Palmerston 
admitted  that  the  Government  of  this  country  had  ,no  complaint 
against  the  Emperor,  and  no  reason  to  be  dissatisfied  with  his 
conduct,  and  that  there  was  no  unsettled  question  or  ground  of 
quarrel  between  the  two  countries.  But  one  man  had  told  him 
of  a  French  order  for  ten  thousand  tons  of  iron. plating  for  ships 
of  war,  and  another  man  had  told  him  of  a  large  order  for  rifled 
cannons,  and  a  third  had  talked  of  some  fiat-bottomed  boats  at 
Nantes.  All  these  tendencies  to  increase  his  means  of  aggression 
in  case  of  a  desire  to  attack  England,  made  it  necessary,  said 
Lord  Palmerston,  to  increase  our  means  of  defence.  Would  it 
not  be  wiser  —  this  is  Cobden's  reflection  on  Lord  Palmerston's 
plea,  — "  to  act  as  private  individuals  would  do  in  such  a  case, 
namely,  ask  an  explanation  of  the  meaning  of  such  apparently 
unfriendly  proceedings,  and  offer  frankly  to  explain  any  acts  in 
return,  which  might  have  a  hostile  complexion.  But  govern- 
ments are  opposed  to  a  simplification  of  their  proceedings,  or  to 
bringing  them  under  those  rules  of  common  sense  which  control 
the  acts  of  e very-day  individual   life." 

On  his  way  back  to  France,  M.  de  Persigny,  the  French  am- 
bassador, came  over  from  Hastings  to  Newhaven  to  discuss  with 
him  the  prospects  of  commercial  reform  in  France.  Cobden 
thought  highly  of  Persigny,  spoke  of  him  as  "an  honest  and 


^T.  55.]  THE   FRENCH   TREATY.  481 

warm-hearted  "  creature,  and  recognized,  as  some  of  the  bitterest 
enemies  of  the  group .  who  helped  Louis  Napoleon  to  the  throne 
have  always  recognized,  that  Persigny's  devotion  to  the  Em- 
peror would  have  stood  the  test  of  adverse  fortune.  However 
this  may  be,  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  French  ambassador's 
zeal  and  sincerity  on  behalf  of  the  new  cause. 

On  the  17th  of  November,  Cobden  returned  to  Paris,  so  ill 
that  he  at  once  took  to  his  bed,  and  was  confined  to  his  room  for 
some  days.  Illness,  however,  did  not  quench  his  zeal,  and  he 
carried  on  the  endless  argument  with  the  Ministers  in  his  bed- 
room. It  is  not  necessary  to  recount  the  course  of  negotiations 
from  day  to  day,  nor  the  busy  and  laborious  discussions  with 
M.  Fould  and  M.  Eouher.  On  December  9th,  M.  Chevalier 
informed  Cobden  that  M.  Eouher  had  prepared  his  plan  for  a 
commercial  treaty,  which  would  be  submitted  for  the  Emperor's 
approval  on  the  next  day.  "There  is  but  one  man  in  the  Gov- 
ernment," M.  Eouher  had  said,  "  the  Emperor,  and  but  one  will, 
that  of  the  Emperor."  The  will  of  this  one  man  still  remained 
uncertain.  Lord  Cowley,  who  had  been  staying  at  Compiegne 
three  weeks  before,  said  the  Emperor  was  strong  for  a  commer- 
cial treaty  with  England,  but  since  then  his  language  had 
changed.  He  had  once  more  found  out  how  many  difficulties 
were  to  be  overcome.  It  had  become,  as  he  told  Lord  Cowley, 
"  une  grosse  affaire!'  The  Emperor  had  been  pressing  M.  Fould 
as  to  the  precise  advantage  that  France  would  gain  in  imitating 
the  policy  of  England.  England,  said  the  Emperor,  was  so  de- 
pendent on  her  foreign  trade,  that  she  was  constantly  in  a  state  ^ 
of  alarm  at  the  prospect  of  war.  France,  on  the  other  hand, 
could  find  herself  involved  in  war  with  comparatively  little 
inconvenience.  "This  remark,"  says  Cobden,  to  whom  it  was 
reported,  "  struck  me  as  disclosing  a  secret  instinct  for  a  policy 
of  war  and  isolation." 

"Lord  Cowley,"  he  says  in  another  place,  "w^ho  knows  the 
Emperor  so  well,  smiled  at  the  idea  which  so  generally  prevails 
of  his  being  always  actuated  by  some  clever  Machiavellian  scheme, 
when  he  is  often  only  committing  indiscretions  from  too  much 
simplicity,  and  want  of  statesmanlike  forethought.  He  repeated 
the  opinion  which  he  had  expressed  before,  that  '  it  is  not  in  him  ' 
to  have  any  great  plan  for  a  political  combination,  extending  into 
the  future,  and  embracing  all  Europe."  . 

Better  ideas  prevailed  at  last.  M.  de  Persigny  had  come  over^ 
from  London,  to  tell  his  master  how  hostile  and  dangerous  was 
the  state  of  opinion  in  England^  For  the  first  time  in  his  experi- 
ence, he  said,  he  believed  war  to  be  possible,  unless  the  Emperor 
took  some  step  to  remove  the  profound  mistrust  that  agitated  the 
English  public.     The  security  of  the  throne,  he  went  on  to  urge, 

31 


482  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1859. 

depended  on  the  English  alliance  being  a  reality.  So  long  as 
there  was  a  solid  friendship  between  England  and  France,  they 
need  not  care  what  might  be  in  the  mind  of  Eussia,  Austria,  or 
Prussia.  This  was  the  course  of  reasoning  which,  in  Cobden's 
opinion,  finally  decided  the  Emperor.  In  other  words,  Napoleon 
assented  to  the  Treaty,  less  because  it  was  good  for  the  French 
V  than  because  it  would  pacify  the  English.  It  was  the  only  avail- 
able instrument  for  keeping  the  English  alliance. 

M.  Rouher  presented  his  plan  of  a  commercial  treaty,  together 
with  sixty  pages  of  illustrative  reasoning  upon  it.  The  whole 
was  read  to  the  Emperor ;  he  listened  attentively  through  every 
page,  approved  it,  and  declared  his  intention  of  carrying  it  out. 
He  then  produced  a  letter  which  he  had  prepared,  addressed  to 
M.  Fould,  and  intended  for  publication,  in  which  he  announced 
^  his  determination  to  enter  upon  a  course  of  pacific  improvement, 
to  promote  the  industry  of  the  country  by  cheapening  transport, 
and  so  forth. 

The  project  was  now  disclosed  to  Count  Walewski,  the  Minister 
for  Foreign  Affairs,  and  Cobden  was  invited  to  have  an  interview 
with  him.  Once  more  he  went  over  the  ground  along  which  he 
/had  already  led  Fould,  Rouher,  and  the  Emperor.  "  T  endeavored," 
\y  says  Cobden,  "  to  remove  his  doubts  and  difficulties,  and  to  fortify 
his  courage  against  the  protectionist  party,  whose  insignificance 
and  powerlessness  I  demonstrated  by  comparing  their  small  body 
with  the  immense  population  which  was  interested  in  the  removal 
of  commercial  restrictions."  The  discussion  with  M.  Walewski 
was  followed  by  a  second  interview  with  the  Emperor. 

I)ec.  21.  —  "  Had  an  interview  with  the  Emperor  at  the  Tuileries. 
I  explained  to  him  that  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  was  anxious  to  prepare  his  Budget  for  the  ensuing 
session  of  Parliament,  and  that  it  would  be  a  convenience  to  him 
to  be  informed  as  soon  as  possible  whether  the  French  Govern- 
ment was  decided  to  agree  to  a  commercial  treaty,  as  in  that  case 
he  would  make  arrangements  accordingly ;  that  he  did  not  wish  to 
be  in  possession  of  the  details,  but  merely  to  know  whether  the 
principle  of  a  treaty  was  determined  upon.  The  Emperor  said 
he  could  have  no  hesitation  in  satisfying  me  on  that  point ;  that 
he  had  quite  made  up  his  mind  to  enter  into  the  Treaty,  and  that 
the  only  question  was  as  to  the  details.  He  spoke  of  the  difficul- 
ties he  had  to  overcome,  owing  to  the  powerful  interests  that  were 
united  in  defence  of  the  present  system.  *  The  protected  indus- 
tries combine,  but  the  general  public  do  not.'  I  urged  many 
arguments  to  encourage  him  to  take  a  bold  course,  pointing  out 
the  very  small  number  of  the  protected  classes  as  compared  witli 
the  whole  community,  and  contending  for  the  interests  of  the 
greatest  number,  rather  than  for  thosev  of  the  minority.     He  re- 


^T.  55.]  THE   FRENCH   TREATY.  483 

peated  to  me  the  arguments  which  had  been  used  by  some  of  his 
ministers  to  dissuade  him  from  a  Free-trade  policy,  particularly 
by  M.  Magne,  his  Finance  Minister,  who  had  urged  that  if  he 
merely  changed  his  system  from  prohibition  to  high  protective 
duties,  it  would  be  a  change  only  in  name,  but  that  if  he  laid  on 
moderate  duties  which  admitted  a  large  importation  of  foreigirH"^ 
merchandise,  then,  for  every  piece  of  manufactured  goods  so  ad- 
mitted to  consumption  in  France,  a  piece  of  domestic  manufacture 
must  be  displaced.  I  pointed  out  the  fallacy  of  M.  Hague's  argu- 
ment in  the  assumption  that  everybody  in  France  was  sufficiently 
clothed,  and  that  no  increased  consumption  could  take  place,  I 
observed  that  many  millions  in  France  never  wore  stockings,  and 
yet  stockings  were  prohibited.  He  remarked  that  he  was  sorry  to 
say  that  ten  millions  of  the  population  hardly  ever  tasted  bread, 
but  subsisted  on  potatoes,  chestnuts,  &c.  —  (I  conclude  this  must 
be  an  exaggeration).  I  expressed  an  opinion  that  the  working 
population  of  his  country  were  in  a  very  inferior  condition  as 
compared  with  those  in  England. 

"Eeferring  to  the  details  in  his  intended  tariff,  he  said  the 
duties  would  range  from  ten  to  thirty  per  c.ent.  I  pointed  out 
the  excessive  rate  of  the  latter  figure,  that  the  maximum  ought  not 
to  exceed  twenty  per  cent ;  that  it  would  defeat  his  object  in 
every  way  if  he  went  as  high  as  thirty  per  cent ;  that  it  would 
fail  as  an  economical  measure,  whilst  in  a  political  point  of  view 
it  would  be  unsuccessful,  inasmuch  as  the  people  of  England 
would  regard  it  as  prohibition  in  another  form.  He  referred  me 
to  M.  Eouher  for  further  discussion  of  this  question.  He  described 
to  me  the  letter  which  he  thought  of  publishing  declaratory  of  his 
intention  of  entering  on  a  course  of  internal  improvement  and 
commercial  reform,  and  asked  me  whether  it  would  not  place  him 
at  a  disadvantage  with  the  B«tish  Government  if  he  announced 
his  policy  beforehand,  and  whether  they  might  not  be  inclined 
afterwards  to  withdraw  from  the  Treaty.  I  replied  that  there 
might  be  other  objections  to  his  publishing  such  a  letter,  but  this 
was  not  one,  and  that  I  was  sure  it  would  not  be  taken  advantage 
of  by  our  Government.  We  then  talked  of  our  immense  prepara- 
tion in  naval  armaments.  I  said  I  expected  that  in  a  few  months 
we  should  have  sixty  line-of-battle  ships,  screws,  in  commission. 
He  said  he  had  only  twenty-seven.  Talking  of  the  excited  state 
of  alarm  in  England,  he  said  he  was  dictating  to  M.  Mocquard  a 
dialogue  between  a  Frenchman  and  an  Englishman,  in  which  lie 
should  introduce  all  the  arguments  used  in  England  to  stimulate 
the  present  alarm  of  French  aggression,  and  his  answers  to  them, 
and  he  asked  if  I  thought  the  Times  would  print  it. 

"Whilst  we  were  in  the  midst  of  this  familiar  conversation, 
during  which  he  smoked  several  cigarettes,  the  Empress  entered 


484  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1859. 

the  room,  to  whom  I  was  introduced.  She  is  a  tall  and  graceful 
person,  very  amiable  and  gracious,  but  her  features  were  not 
entirely  free  from  an  expression  of  though tfulness,  if  not  melan- 
choly. The  Emperor  is  said  by  everybody  to  be  very  fascinating 
to  those  who  come  much  in  personal  contact  with  him.  I  found 
him  more  attractive  at  this  second  audience  than  the  first.  His 
manner  is  very  simple  and  natural.  If  there  be  any  affectation, 
it  is  in  a  slight  air  of  humility  ('  young  ambition's  ladder'),  which 
shows  itself  with  consummate  tact  in  his  voice  and  gestures." 

Cobden  gives  some  further  particulars  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Bright 
(Dec.  29.  1859):  — 

"  I  saw  the  Emperor  again  for  a  full  hour  last  week,  as  you 
would  learn  from  your  brother.  Of  course,  I  tried  to  employ 
every  minute  on  my  own  topic,  but  he  was  in  a  talkative  mood, 
and  sometimes  ran  off  on  other  subjects.  It  was  at  four  o'clock  ; 
he  had  been  busy  all  day,  and  I  was  surprised  at  the  gayety  of  liis 
manner.     He   smoked   cigarettes   all  the   time,  but  talked   and 

listened  admirably On  this  occasion  my  private  lesson  was 

chiefly  taken  up  with  answering  the  arguments  with  which  M. 
Magne,  his  Minister  of  Finance,  who  is  a  furious  protectionist, 
had  been  trying  to  frighten  him.  Here  was  one  of  them,  which 
he  repeated  word  for  word  to  me :  '  Sire,  if  you  do  not  make  a 
sensible  reduction  in  your  duties,  the  measure  will  be  charged  on 
you  as  an  attempted  delusion.  If  you  do  make  a  serious  reduc- 
tion, then  for  every  piece  of  foreign  manufacture  admitted  into 
France,  you  will  displace  a  piece  of  domestic  fabrication.'  I  of 
course  laughed,  and  held  up  both  hands,  and  exclaimed  what  an 
old  friend  that  argument  was ;  how  we  had  been  told  the  same 
thing  a  thousand  times  of  corn  ;  and  how  we  answered  it  a  thou- 
sand times  by  showing  that  a  fourth  part  of  the  people  were  not 
properly  fed.  And  then  I  showed  how  we  had  imported  many 
millions  of  quarters  of  corn  annually  since  the  repeal  of  our  corn 
law,  whilst  our  own  agriculture  was  more  prosperous  and  pro- 
ductive than  ever,  and  yet  it  was  all  consumed.  I  told  him  that 
his  people  were  badly  clothed,  that  nearly  a  fourth  of  his  subjects 
did  not  wear  stockings,  and  I  begged  liim  to  remind  M.  Magne 
that  if  a  few  thousand  dozens  of  hose  were  admitted  into  France, 
they  might  be  consumed  by  these  bare-legged  people,  without 

interfering  with  the  demand  for  the  native  manufacture 

We  then  got  upon  the  condition  of  the  mass  of  the  working 
people,  where  his  sympathy  is  mainly  centred,  and  on  the  effect 
of  machinery.  Free  Trade,  etc.,  on  their  fate.  He  said  the  pro- 
tectionists always  argued  that  the  working  class  engaged  in  manu- 
factures were  better  off  here  than  in  England,  and  they  always 
assumed  that  Free  Trade  would  lower  the  condition  of  the  French 
operatives.     I  told  him  that  the  operatives  in  France  were  work- 


^T.55.]  THE  FRENCH   TREATY.  485 

ing  twenty  per  cent  more  time  for  twenty  per  cent  less  wages,  and 
paid  upwards  of  ten  per  cent  more  for  their  clothing,  as  compared 
with  the  same  class  in  England.  He  seized  a  pen  and  asked  me 
to  repeat  these  figures,  which  he  put  down,  observing,  '  What 
an  answer  to  those  people ! '  I  told  him  that  if  M.  Magne  or 
anybody  else  disputed  my  figures,  I  was  prepared  to  prove  them. 
But  I  need  not  repeat  to  you  a  course  of  argument  with  which 
we  are  so  familiar." 

After  this  interview  the  negotiation  reached  the  stage  of  for- 
mal diplomacy.  Cobden's  position  had  hitherto  been  wholly 
unofficial.  He  had  been  a  private  person,  representing  to  the 
French  Emperor  that  he  believed  the  English  Government  would 
not  be  indisposed  to  entertain  the  question  of  a  commercial  treaty. 
The  matter  came  officially  before  Lord  Cowley  in  the  form  of  a 
request  from  Count  Walewski  that  he  would  ascertain  the  views 
and  intentions  of  his  Government.  Lord  Cowley  applied  to  Lord 
John  Eussell  for  official  instructions  to  act,  and  in  the  course  of 
the  next  month  Cobden  received  his  own  instructions  and  powers. 
Meanwhile  not  a  day  was  lost,  and  he  brought  the  same  tact  and 
unwearied  energy  to  the  settlement  of  the  details  of  the  Treaty, 
which  he  had  employed  in  persuading  this  little  group  of  im- 
portant men  to  accept  its  principles  and  policy.  There  was  one 
singular  personage,  who  ought  from  his  keen  faculties,  his  grasp 
of  the  principles  of  modern  progress,  and  his  position,  to  have 
been  the  most  important  of  all,  but  in  whom  his  gifts  have  been 
nullified  by  want  of  that  indescribable  something  which  men  call 
character  and  the  spirit  of  conduct.  This  was  Prince  Napoleon. 
Cobden  had  several  conversations  with  him,  and  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  few  men  in  France  had  a  more  thorough  mastery  of 
economic  questions.  He  thus  describes  their  first  interview, 
which  is  interesting  from  the  clearness  with  which  it  brings  out 
how  secondary  or  indirect  an  object  the  commercial  treaty  was  in 
itself  to  the  French  Government,  compared  with  its  importance 
in  their  eyes  as  a  means  of  strengthening .  the  alliance  between 
France  and  England :  — 

"  Jan.  4.  —  Dined  at  M.  Emile  de  Girardin's,  and  met  Prince 
Napoleon,  the  son  of  Jerome,  whose  face  bears  a  strong  resem- 
blance to  the  first  Napoleon.  After  dinner  I  conversed  apart  with 
him  for  nearly  an  hour  upon  the  subject  of  the  proposed  Treaty, 
to  which  he  was  strongly  favorable.  He  verified  the  opinion  I 
had  heard  of  him  as  being  favorable  to  Free  Trade,  and  he  spoke 
with  much  fluency  and  considerable  knowledge  on  economical 
questions.  He  gives  one  the  impression  of  great  cleverness  in  a 
first  interview.  In  the  course  of  our  conversation,  in  speaking  of 
the  relations  between  France  and  England,  he  said  that  he  knew, 
from  frequent  conversations  with  the  Emperor,  that  he  desired. 


v/ 


486  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

du  fond  de  son  cceur,  to  be  at  peace  with  England,  and  that  he 
was  led  to  this  feeling  by  the  perusal  of  the  life  of  his  uncle, 
whose  fall  was  attributable  to  the  hostility  of  England,  whose 
wealth  furnished  the  sinews  of  war  to  the  whole  of  Europe.  I 
went  over  the  whole  of  the  arguments,  political  and  economical, 
in  favor  of  the  Treaty ;  and  he  finally  proposed  to  see  the  Emperor 
on  the  subject  to-morrow. 

"  He  informed  me  that  M.  Walewski  had  retired  from  the  post 
of  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs.^  This  led  to  a  long  conversation 
upon  the  foreign  policy  of  France.  The  Prince  said  that  as  there 
was  to  be  no  congress  on  Italian  affairs,  the  only  way  in  which 
they  could  be-  arranged  was  by  a  thorough  alliance  between 
France,  England,  and  Sardinia,  by  whom  the  Italian  territory 
must  be  held  inviolate  against  foreign  intervention,  and  that 
England  must  be  prepared,  in  case  Austria  should  violate  this 
rule,  to  send  a  fleet  into  the  Adriatic  to  co-operate  with  France 
against  that  Power.  I  told  him  that  such  an  alliance  with  the 
present  state  of  public  opinion  in  England  so  hostile  to,  or  so 
fearful  of,  the  designs  of  the  Emperor,  was  out  of  the  question ; 
that  the  only  way  to  alter  this  state  of  doubt  and  suspicion  was  a 
declaration  of  views  by  the  French  Government  favorable  to  a 
greater  commercial  intercourse  between  the  two  countries ;  that 
letters  or  phrases  would  have  no  effect;  that  acts  alone,  as  dis- 
played in  a  reform  of  the  tariff,  would  inspire  the  English  people 
with  confidence  in  the  pacific  intentions  of  the  Emperor.  The 
Prince  professed  a  perfect  agreement,  repeating  my  words  that 
there  had  been  enough  and  too  many  phrases  and  letters.  He  said 
that  he  feared  the  Emperor  might  not  be  firm  in  the  affair  of  the 
Treaty ;  that  he  would  be  deterred  from  his  purpose  by  reports 
which  M.  Billault,  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  would  give  him 
of  the  hostile  feelings  of  the  protectionists,  and  their  work-people 
at  Ptouen,  Lille,  etc.;  that  he  had  twice  abandoned  his  purpose, 
and  thrown  over  M.  Eouher,  whom  he  had  previously  encouraged 
to  proceed  with  the  reform  of  the  tariff';  that  the  Emperor, 
though  he  persists  in  arriving  at  an  object  which  he  has  once 
resolved  to  attain,  yet  had  a  habit  of  deviating  and  stumbling  by 
the  way." 

There  were  frequent  interruptions,  for,  as  Lord  Palmerston  once 
said,  Napoleon's  mind  was  as  full  of  schemes  as  a  warren  is  full 
of  rabbits.  Cobden  was  alarmed  one  day,  for  instance,  by  a  story 
that  the  treaty  of  commerce  was  to  be  thrown  aside  in  favor  of  a 
treaty  of  alliance  for  settling  the  affairs  of  Italy.  Then  the  treaty 
of  commerce  was  not  to  be  thrown  aside,  but  a  political  treaty 
was  to  be  tacked  on  to  it.     "  It  is  possible,"  Cobden  wrote  to  Mr. 

1  Walewski's  retirement  was  due  to  his  disagreement  with  the  Emperor  on  the 
subject  of  an  Italian  Confederation.     He  was  succeeded  by  M.  Thouvenel. 


^T.  56.]  THE   FRENCH   TREATY.  487 

Gladstone  (Jan.  7,  1860),  "that  the  Emperor  may  think  we  attach 
so  much  importance  to  the  Treaty,  that  he  can  make  it  a  bribe  to 
make  us  agree  to  something  else.  Much  as  I  am  interested  in  the 
success  of  the  good  work,  I  would  not  allow  such  a  stipulation  to 
be  made.  The  Emperor  has  more  necessity  for  our  alliance  than 
we  have  for  his  just  now."  When  this  disquieting  project  van- 
ished, the  Emperor  wished  to  submit  the  draft  of  the  Treaty  to 
the  Legislative  Body,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  he  had  him- 
self assured  Cobden  that  the  Legislative  Body  was  irreconcilably 
hostile  to  every  maimer  of  Free  Trade. 

After  this  there  was  one  more  fierce  struggle  at  the  council- 
table.  M.  Magne  —  a  cannon-ball  protectionist,  as  Cobden  de- 
scribed him  —  and  M.  Troplong  insisted  tliat  at  any  rate  the 
Emperor  was  bound  by  his  word  of  honor  to  have  an  inquiry  be- 
fore he  abolished  the  prohibitive  system.  The  Emperor  yielded, 
and  held  a  formal  inquiry,  which  was  limited  to  two  days.  Mean- 
while, to  show  that  he  had  no  intention  of  drawing  back,  he  sent 
to  the  Moniteur,  what  was  for  nine  days  a  memorable  document, 
the  Letter  to  M.  Fould.  This  letter  was  an  announcement,  in 
shadowy  general  terms,  of  the  coming  change ;  it  had  previously 
been  submitted  by  the  Emperor  to  Cobden,  and  at  Cobden's  sug- 
gestion some  changes  and  additions  had  been  made  in  it.  Yet,  \ 
though  Cobden  thus  was  not  only  the  inspirer  of  the  Treaty,  but  \ 
actually  put  words  and  principles  into  the  Emperor's  mouth,  one  '^ 
of  the  favorite  charges  against  the  Treaty,  when  it  came  before 
Parliament  in  England,  was  that  it  was  the  result  of  a  policy  of 
subservience.  With  noble  indignation  one  member  of  the  House 
of  Commons  asked  whether  the  free  Parliament  of  Britain  had 
assembled  only  to  register  the  decrees  of  a  foreign  despot.  / 

In  France  the  Emperor's  letter  excited  intense  excitement. 
An  eminent  member  of  the  English  Parliament  happened  to  be  at 
the  house  of  M.  Thiers  on  the  evening  when  the  news  of  the 
Treaty  w^as  brought  in,  and  he  has  described  the  sparkling  fury  of 
the  great  man  at  the  Emperor's  new  card.  The  protectionists 
hastened  to  Paris  and  appointed  a  strong  committee  to  sit  en  per- 
manence. The  feeling  was  so  violent  that  the  greatest  industrial 
personage  in  France  told  Cobden  that  his  own  nephew  had  refused 
to  shake  hands  because  he,  the  uncle,  was  a  Free  Trader.  The 
Orleanists  were  disgusted  that  the  Emperor  should  have  the  credit 
of  doing  a  good  thing,  and  Cobden  heard  one  of  the  party  declare, 
with  much  vehemence,  at  a  dinner  of  the  Political  Economy  Club, 
that  to  establish  Free  Trade  in  a  country  where  public  opinion 
was  not  ripe  for  it,  was  neither  more  nor  less  than  gross  oppres- 
sion. Friends  and  foes,  however,  amid  the  hubbub  of  criticism, 
agreed  in  admiring  the  Emperor's  courage.  "  You  may  form  some 
idea  of  the  position,"  Cobden  wrote  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  "if  you  will 


488  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

imagine  yourself  in  England  in  1820,  before  Mr.  Huskisson  began 
his  innovations  in  our  tariff,  with  this  serious  disadvantage  on  the 
side  of  the  French  Government,  that  while  the  protectionists  have 
all  the  selfishness  and  timidity  which  characterized  our  'interests' 
at  that  time,  they  arrogate  to  themselves  an  amount  of  social  and 
political  importance  which  our  manufacturers  never  pretended  to 

possess It  would  hardly  be  possible  to  assemble  five  hundred 

persons  together  by  any  process  of  selection,  and  not  find  nine 
tenths  of  them  at  least  in  favor  of  the  present  restrictive  system." 
Only  thirteen  years  before,  as  we  have  seen,  Louis  Philippe  had 
candidly  told  Cobden  that  the  iron-masters  and  other  protected 
interests  commanded  such  an  overwhelming  majority  in  the 
Chamber,  that  it  was  utterly  impossible  to  take  a  single  step  in 
the  direction  of  Free  Trade.  Cobden  had  been  warned  from  the 
first  that  the  iron  interest  had  powerful  friends  even  within  the 
walls  of  the  imperial  palace,  and  he  felt  this  occult  antagonism 
throughout  the  negotiation. 

The  resistance  to  the  Treaty  grew  stronger  every  hour.  A 
hundred  and  twenty  cotton  spinners  assembled  in  the  courtyard 
of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  tumultuously  crying  for  an  imme- 
diate interview.  *  M.  Thiers  was  said  to  be  calling  for  an  audience 
with  the  Emperor.  The  press  teemed  with  articles  and  pam- 
phlets, whose  logic  and  temper  betrayed  the  high  pressure  under 
which  they  had  been  composed.  In  Manchester,  meanwhile,  the 
Emperor's  letter  had  created  an  exultant  excitement  which  had 
never  been  equalled  since  the  day  when  Sir  Eobert  Peel  an- 
nounced that  he  was  about  to  repeal  the  Corn  Laws.  The  letter 
had  appeared  on  a  Sunday  (January  15th),  and  at  the  great  mar- 
ket which  used  to  draw  men  from  every  part  of  that  thriving 
district  on  Tuesdays,  the  French  Emperor  w^as  everywhere  hailed 
as  the  best  man  in  Europe.  This  intense  satisfaction  was  due  less 
to  a  desire  for  extended  trade,  than  to  the  confidence  that  the 
Emperor  intended  peace,  and  had  taken  the  most  effectual  means 
to  make  it  permanent.  The  English  newspapers,  which  every 
morning  for  months  past  had  been  accusing  the  Emperor  of  every 
sinister  quality  in  statesmanship,  now  turned  round  so  hand- 
somely that  M.  Baroche  told  Cobden  he  wished  they  could  be 
forced  to  moderate  their  compliments,  as  such  flattery  made  the 
Treaty  more  unpopular  in  France. 

A  week  after  the  publication  of  the  letter,  the  Treaty  was  ready 
for  execution,  and  the  happy  day  arrived.  The  following  is 
Cobden's  entry  in  his  journal :  — 

"  Jan.  23.  —  Went  to  the  Embassy  at  eight  this  morning,  to 
revise  for  the  last  time  the  list  of  articles  in  the  Treaty.  At  two 
o'clock  the  plenipotentiaries  met  at  the  Foreign  Office,  where  the 
Treaty  was  read  pver  by  a  clerk  in  French  and  English,  after 


^T.  56.]  THE  FRENCH  TREATY.  489 

which  it  was  duly  signed  and  sealed*.^  It  is  wanting  four  days , 
only  of  three  months  since  I  had  my  first  interview  with  the! 
Emperor  at  St.  Cloud.  The  interval  has  been  a  period  of  almost 
incessant  nervous  irritation  and  excitement,  owing  to  the  delays 
and  uncertainties  which  have  constantly  arisen.  I  can  now  un- 
derstand not  only  the  wisdom,  but  the  benevolence,  of  Talleyrand, 
when  he  counselled  a  young  diplomatist  not  to  he  in  earnest. 
However,  the  work  is  at  last  at  an  end,  and  I  hope  it  will  pave 
the  way  for  a  change  in  the  relations  between  these  two  great 
neighbors  by  placing  England  and  France  in  mutual  commercial 
dependence  on  each  other." 

Cobden's  health  had  been  so  bad  since  his  return  to  Paris  in 
the  middle  of  November,  that  the  end  of  his  business  came  none 
too  soon.  His  throat  and  chest  gave  him  incessant  trouble,  and 
the  doctor  urged  a  speedy  flight  to  the  lands  of  the  sun.  Lord 
Palmerston  had  written  to  him  that  "  the  climate  of  Paris  is  per- 
haps better  than  that  of  London,  but  then  the  French  physicians 
are  less  in  the  habit  of  curing  their  patients  than  ours  are."  From 
climate  and  physicians  alike  Cobden  was  eager  to  escape.  As  it 
happened,  the  work  was  not  even  yet  quite  at  an  end.  Some 
small  verbal  loosenesses  were  discovered  in  the  Treaty.  The 
negotiators  had  written  English  coke  and  coal,  when  they  meant 
British,  and  harbor,  when  they  meant  shipping.  It  was  re- 
written, and  again  signed,  the  signatures  and  seals  from  the  old 
Treaty  having  been  duly  cut  off.     This  was  on  January  29. 

Surprise  has  often  been  expressed  that  a  man  of  Cobden's 
strong  Liberalism  should  have  been  not  only  so  willing  to  co-oper- 
ate with  Louis  Napoleon,  but  so  unable  to  enter  into  the  feelings 
of  Frenchmen  towards  a  government  which,  besides  being  lawless 
and  violent  in  its  origin,  persisted  in  stifling  the  press,  corrupting 
the  administration,  silencing  the  popular  voice,  and  from  time  to 
time  sending  great  batches  of  untried  and  often  innocent  men  to 
obscure  and  miserable  death  at  Cayenne.  A  story  is  told  of  an 
Englishman  of  reputation  at  this  time  saying  to  a  group  which 
surrounded  him  in  a  Parisian  drawing-room  :  —  "  But  surely  under 
your  present  Government  France  is  "prosperous ;  and  surely  you 
can  do  as  you  please."  "  Oh,  dear,  yes,"  said  a  bystander,  "  if  we 
wish  only  to  eat,  drink,  and  make  money,  we  can  do  exactly  as 
we  please."  It  was  said  that  Cobden  thought  too  lightly  of  all 
those  things,  besides  eating,  drinking,  and  making  money,  which 
the  best  Frenchman  might  wish  to  do  and  ought  to  be  esteemed 
and  praised  for  wishing  to  do.  One  or  two  remarks  may  be  made 
upon  this  interesting  point. 

In  the  first  place,  economists  have  often  been  apt  to  treat  the 

1  Lord  Gowley  and  Cobden  signed  on  behalf  of  England,  and  M.  Baroche— then 
Acting  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs — and  M.  Rouher  for  France. 


490  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [I860. 

political  side  of  affairs  as  secondary  to  the  material  side.  Turgot, 
and  the  whole  school  of  which  he  is  the  greatest  name,  systemat- 
ically assumed  that  the  reforms  which  they  sought  should  proceed 
from  an  absolute  central  power.  It  was  one  of  the  distinctions 
of  the  Saint  Simonians,  to  whom  Cobden's  friend  Chevalier  be- 
longed, that  they  held  strongly  that  government  is  good  for  some- 
thing, and  that  authority  is  an  indispensable  principle  of  modern 
societies.  M.  Laffitte,  the  admirable  chief  of  another  earnest  sect 
of  social  reformers,  told  an  English  traveller  that  he  and  his  friends 
approved  of  the  imperial  regime.  Cobden's  attitude,  therefore, 
was  in  harmony  with  that  of  many  able  and  disinterested  men 
who  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  imperialist  party,  but  who  con- 
scientiously thought  that  the  existing  Government,  notwithstand- 
ing its  heavy  drawbacks,  was  better  than  the  anarchy  of  utopists, 
anarchists,  and  talkers,  which  it  had  superseded,  and  that  it  had  at 
least  the  merit  of  preserving  an  amount  and  kind  of  order  in  which 
the  ideas  of  a  better  system  might  grow  up.  Events,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  the  present  writer,  only  confirmed  what  sound  political  judg- 
ment might  have  led -men  to  expect  —  namely,  that  this  was  a 
grave  miscalculation.  Sedan  and  the  Treaty  of  Frankfort  proved 
it.  But  if  Cobden  thought  better  of  the  Empire  than  it  deserved, 
not  a  few  good  and  high-minded  Frenchmen  erred  with  him. 

Our  second  remark,  however,  is  that  Cobden  was  probably  as 
well  aware  as  others  of  the  evils  and  perils  of  the  Empire.  He 
was  no  blind  believer  in  the  Emperor,  as  his  letters  testify.  It 
was  not  his  tendency  to  believe  blindly  in  any  governments.  But 
he  always  revolted  from  the  pharisaical  censoriousness  and  most 
unseemly  license  with  which  English  journalists  and  others  are 
accustomed  to  write  about  the  rulers  and  the  affairs  of  foreign 
nations.  He  always  inclined  to  moral,  no  less  than  to  a  material, 
non-intervention  in  the  domestic  doings  of  other  countries,  and 
thought  it  right  to  observe  and  counsel  a  language  of  scrupulous 
decency  towards  a  government  in  which  the  bulk  of  the  French 
nation  formally  and  deliberately  acquiesced. 

Apart  from  such  considerations  as  these,  Cobden  would  proba- 
bly have  defended  himself  for  acting  with  such  a  government  as 
that  of  Louis  Napoleon,  by  the  plain  argument  that  in  politics  it 
is  wise  not  to  throw  away  any  opportunity  of  getting  a  good  thing 
done.  The  Empire  was  there,  and  it  was  the  part  of  sound  sense 
to  secure  from  it  whatever  compensation  it  might  be  made  to 
afford  for  its  flagrant  and  admitted  disadvantages.  It  is  some- 
times said  that  the  policy  of  Free  Trade  has  been  damaged  in 
the  opinion  of  France,  by  being  thus  associated  with  the  ruined 
Empire.  Apart  from  the  fact  that  later  governments  have  not 
ventured  to  go  back  from  the  Treaty  policy,  if  this  plea  against 
Cobden  were  in  any  degree  true,  we  ought  to  find  the  desire  for 


J)t.  56.]  HOLIDAY   AND   RETURN   TO   PARIS.  491 

protection  strongest  in  those  parts  where  dislike  of  the  Empire  is 
strongest.  This  is  notoriously  not  the  case.  The  feeling  about 
the  Treaty  uniformly  follows  the  interests  of  the  people  con- 
cerned, and  is  absolutely  independent  of  any  feeling  as  to  the 
government  by  which  the  Treaty  was  made. 

This  was  in  fact  Cobden's  own  case.     He  knew  as  well  as  any 
one  else  that  the  position  of  the  Emperor  was  that  of  a  gambler,! 
who  might  be  driven  by  the  chances  of  fortune  to  acts  of  despera-  j 
tion.     But  he  insisted  that,  so  far  as  England  was  concerned,  the  j 
Emperor  nursed  no  criminal  designs,  but,  on  the  contrary,  madej 
friendship  with  England  the  keystone  of  his  system.     He  in- 1 
sisted,  moreover,  that  eVen  if   it  were  otherwise,  still  the  most  j 
solid  and  durable  check  to  the  development  of  hostile  purposes; 
would  be  found  in  the  promotion  of  close  and  deeply  interested 
commercial  intercourse  between  the  people  of  the  two  countries. 
The  change  in  the  relations  between  the  governments  of  France 
and  England  for  the  last  twenty  years,  in  the  language  of  the 
French  and  English  press,  in  the  mutual  sentiments  of  the  twoj 
peoples,  is  the  verification  of  Cobden's  hope  and  foresight.  -^ 


CHAPTER    XXX. 

HOLIDAY    AND    RETURN   TO   PARIS. 

Most  men  would  have  been  content,  after  such  an  achievement 
as  the  Treaty,  to  sink  instantly  into  the  repose  of  a  long  holiday. 
If  Cobden  had  been  so  exclusively  interested  in  a  mere  increase 
of  trade  as  his  adversaries  believed,  he  would  have  cared  very 
little  for  the  Italian  question.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  cared 
intensely  for  it,  and  thought  clearly  about  it.  He  had  as  defi- 
nite ideas  and  as  deep  an  anxiety  about  foreign  affairs  as  Lord 
Palmerston  himself.  It  was  in  method  that  the  vast  difference 
existed  between  them,  not  in  the  supposed  fact  that  one  had  a 
foreign  policy  and  the  other  had  none.  Cobden  went  straight 
from  the  Foreign  Office,  where  he  had  just  signed  the  revised 
Treaty,  to  the  Austrian  Embassy.  Prince  Metternich  was  not  at 
home,  but  Cobden  returned  the  next  day  and  delivered  his  soul 
on  the  subject  of  Venetia,  which  was  then  jeoparding  the  Euro- 
pean peace. 

We  have  to  remember  that  all  this  time  the  entanglements  of 
Italy  had  been  distracting  the  Powers.  Throughout  the  negotia- 
tions on  the  Treaty,  which,  as  we  shall  see,  lasted  until  the  autumn 


492  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1860. 

of  1860,  the  group  of  difficulties  known  as  the  Italian  question 
engrossed  the  attention  of  every  statesman  in  Europe.  The  Em- 
peror of  the  French  was  more  dangerously  involved  in  these 
difficulties  than  any  one  else,  not  excepting  Victor  Emmanuel  him- 
self The  Treaties  of  Zurich,  which  gave  definitive  shape  to  the 
IDreliminaries  agreed  upon  between  Napoleon  and  Francis  Joseph 
at  Villafranca  (July  11,  1859),  had  been  signed  during  Cobden's 
short  visit  to  London  in  November. 

Tiie  base  of  these  Treaties,  which  proved  the  most  absolutely 
abortive  documents  in  the  whole  history  of  diplomacy,  was  the 
proposed  formation  of  an  Italian  Confederation  under  the  honor- 
ary presidency  of  the  Pope;  the  cession  of  Lombardy,  save  the  two 
great  fortresses  of  Peschiera  and  Mantua,  to  the  King  of  Sardinia ; 
admission  of  Yenetia  to  the  Italian  Confederation,  while  remain- 
ing a  possession  of  Austria ;  the  restoration  of  the  Dukes  of  Tus- 
cany and  Modena.  There  was,  at  the  moment  when  Cobden  saw 
Prince  Metternich,  no  prospect  of  a  single  article  of  either  Treaty 
being  realized.  The  Grand  Dukes  dared  not  enter  their  former 
dominions.  The  Eomagna  would  not  receive  back  the  agents  of 
the  Pope.  The  Italians  would  have  nothing  to  say  to  a  Confed- 
eration, and  insisted  on  unity.  The  Pope  protested,  in  language 
that  was  more  energetic  than  saintly,  against  all  that  had  been 
done,  and  denounced  a  pamphlet  which  was  known  to  be  written 
by  the  French  Emperor  as  a  monument  of  hypocrisy  and  an  ig- 
noble tissue  of  contradictions.^ 

The  deadlock  of  the  moment  was  unique.  The  force  of  circum- 
stances had  brought  the  European  powers  to  a  policy  of  non- 
intervention, not  by  their  own  free  will,  but  because  the  peril  of 
departing  from  it  was  grave  and  instant.  The  Emperor  of  Austria 
and  the  Emperor  of  the  French  were  equally  bound  by  the  Treaty 
of  Zurich,  but  the  Treaty  of  Zurich  was  desperate.  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  and  Lord  John  Russell,  whose  sympathies  were  generously 
given  to  the  cause  of  Italy,  were  inclined  to  a  course  which  might 
not  improbably  have  drawn  England  into  war.^  The  case  was 
exactly  that  which  many  partisans  of  the  general  principle  of 
non-intervention  have  taken  as  beyond  the  limits  of  that  princi- 
ple ;  it  was  a  case,  namely,  of  intervention  by  English  diplomacy 
to  enforce  non-intervention  by  Austria  in  the  rights  of  the  people 
of  Italy  to  settle  their  own  government.  However  this  may  be, 
there  was  no  objection  to  the  informal  diplomacy  in  which  Cob- 
den now  innocently  engaged,  and  those  who  realize  the  interest 
and  prodigious  peril  of  the  Italian  question  in  the  early  weeks  of 

1  "  The  Emperor  is  decidedly  too  fond  of  seeing  himself  in  print,"  Cohden  wrote 
in  his  journal,  when  Le  Pape  et  le  Congres  appeared. 

2  See  Mr.  Ashley's  Life  of  Lord  Palmerston,  ii.  chapter  15,  p.  382.  Mem.  of 
Jan.  5,  1860. 


iET.56.]  HOLIDAY   AND   RETURN   TO   PARIS.  493 

1860  will  perhaps  care  to  know  what  was  Cobden's  advice  to 
Austria.  It  was  Austrian  policy  in  regard  to  Venetia  that  made 
the  cardinal  difficulty. 

''Jan.  30,  1860. —  Called  and  conversed  for  nearly  an  hour 
with  Prince  Metternich,  the  Austrian  ambassador,  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  the  affairs  of  Italy.  I  took  special  care  at  the  outset  to 
explain  to  him  that  I  held  no  diplomatic  or  other  official  post ; 
tliat  the  Treaty  of  Commerce  having  been  signed,  for  which  alone 
I  had  been  named  plenipotentiary,  I  reverted  to  my  former  ca- 
pacity of  an  independent  member  of  Parliament,  having  no  con- 
nection with  the  English  Government ;  and  that  neither  Lord 
Cowley  nor  any  one  else  was  aware  of  my  intention  of  calling  on 
the  Prince.  I  then  observed  that  the  interest  I  felt  in  the  cause 
of  European  peace,  and  the  fear  I  felt  lest  a  rupture  might  again 
take  place  on  the  Italian  question,  had  emboldened  me  to  call  to 
ask  his  attention  for  a  few  minutes  to  what  I  had  to  say,  premis- 
ing that  I  did  not  ask  or  expect  him  to  offer  any  opinion  in  reply. 
I  began  by  explaining  very  frankly  the  state  of  public  opinion  in 
England,  as  well  as  in  the  United  States,  on  the  Italian  question ; 
that  the  popular  sympathies  were  everywhere  strongly  in  favor 
of  the  Italians  ;  and  that  if  another  struggle  should  arise  for  the 
independence  of  Venetia,  and  especially  if  it  were  attended  with 
slaughter  of  civilians,  or  sack  of  an  unarmed  community,  it  would 
be  very  difficult  for  any  government  in  England  to  prevent  the 
feeling  of  horror  and  resentment  from  assuming  the  form  of  mate- 
rial aid  to  the  Italians.  I  then  proceeded  to  hint  whether,  in 
such  a  state  of  things  as  existed  in  Venetia,  it  would  not  be  true 
wisdom  in  the  Austrian  Government  to  contemplate  some  arrange- 
ment by  which  the  danger  of  war  might  be  averted  ,  that  there 
were  people  now  speculating  on  the  prospects  of  war  this  spring, 
and  they  might  not  be  unwilling  to  promote  such  a  result :  and  I 
then  frankly  added  that  I  did  not  believe  there  was  any  other 
mode  by  which  the  danger  could  be  efi'ectually  met  but  by  aban- 
doning Venetia  to  the  Italians,  taking  in  return  an  indemnity 
which  I  thought  might  be  made  to  amount  to  a  very  important 
sum  of  money." 

"I  then  continued  (as  he  did  not  seem  desirous  of  taking  a  part 
in  the  conversation)  to  urge  some  reasons  for  entertaining  such 
an  idea.  I  showed  the  great  pecuniary  loss  which  Austria  suf- 
fered from  the  possession  of  Venetia  ,  that  the  cost  of  holding  the 
province  in  subjection  was  far  more  than  its  income ;  that  I  be- 
lieved there  were  now  so  many  soldiers  in  possession  of  Venetia, 
that  they  were  equal  to  one  for  every  ten  of  the  entire  popula- 
tion ;  that  this  "state  of  things  was  growing  every  year  worse  and 
worse,  and  that  whilst  the  present  cost  was  so  burdensome  to  the 
resources  of  Austria,  the  imminent  danger  of  the  future  prevented 


494  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

her  Government  from  directing  its  energies  to  the  improvement 
of  the  internal  resources  of  the  Empire. 

"  He  now  gradually  took  a  part  in  the  conversation,  giving  me 
credit  for  the  singleness  of  purpose  which  had  induced  me  to  call 
on  hiui,  and  said  that  my  antecedents  upon  the  question  of  peace, 
and  the  extension  of  commerce,  were  a  justification  for  the  course 
I  was  taking.  He  frankly  avowed  that  he  did  not  justify  every- 
thing that  his  government  had  been  doing  of  late  in  Italy,  and 
that  he  blamed  especially  the  mode  in  which  they  had  commenced 
the  war  last  year.  He  observed  that,  speaking  only  his  own  in- 
dividual sentiments,  he  did  not  consider  that,  '  if  the  interests  of 
the  peace  of  Europe  called  for  such  an  arrangement,'  it  would  be 
'absolutely  impossible'  for  Austria  to  come  to  terms  with  Venetia, 
by  which  their  relations  might  be  placed  upon  a  different  footing. 
He  hinted  at  the  appointment  of  a  Grand  Duke  with  greater  local 
powers.  His  ideas  did  not  go  to  the  extent  of  a  complete  aliena- 
tion of  territory.  Indeed,  he  expressed  an  opinion  that  the  great 
body  of  the  population  of  Venetia  were  not  so  much  disaffected 
towards  the  present  order  of  things  as  was  suj^posed;  that  the 
agitation  against  the  Austrian  Government  was  factitious,  and  so 
forth. 

"  I  endeavored  to  combat  this  view  by  drawing  his  attention  to 
the  immense  military  force  kept  up.  He  said  that  this  was  ren- 
dered necessary  by  the  hostile  attitude  of  their  next  neighbor.  T 
pointed  to  this  as  an  inevitable  state  of  things ;  and  I  observed 
that,  although  I  had  no  sympathy  for  the  dynastic  ambition  of 
the  King  of  Sardinia,  or  for  the  plans  of  annexation  which  were 
entertained  by  his  Minister,  still  it  could  not  be  denied  that  the 
kingdom  of  Sardinia  was  a  growing  power,  possessing  to  a  large 
extent  the  sympathy  of  the  world,  and  that  therefore  the  perma- 
nent influence  of  that  State,  as  a  hostile  neighbor,  must  always 
be  taken  into  account  in  the  value  to  be  put  upon  Venetia.  I 
declared  my  belief  that  the  two  races  would  become  every  year 
more  and  more  alienated,  and  that  it  would  be  impossible  perma- 
nently to  keep  possession  of  Venetia,  or  that  it  could  only  be  held 
at  a  ruinous  loss  to  the  Government  of  Vienna.  I  remarked  that 
whilst  Austria  possessed  Lombardy,  she  had  a  comparatively  an- 
cient title  to  her  Italian  possessions,  but  she  had  come  into  such 
recent  possession  of  her  Venetian  territory,  and  the  mode  in  which 
Venice  had  been  given  over  to  her  by  Bonaparte,  at  Campo  For- 
mio,  was  such  an  outrage  upon  all  justice  and  decency,  chat  Eu- 
rope felt  a  sort  of  shame  at  having  been  made  a  party  to  such  an 
act  of  violence  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  and  it  would  be  held 
by  many  to  be  a  duty  to  contribute  towards  a  redress  of  the  evil. 

"  He  said  that  Austria  was  peculiarly  circumstanced  ;  that  it 
was  a  collection  of  nationalities ;  and  that  it  would  be  a  serious 


^T.  56.]  HOLIDAY   AND   RETURN   TO   PARIS.  495 

thing  to  begin  a  process  of  selling  the  independence  of  a  province 
of  the  Empire.  I  said  there  was  no  analogy  between  the  state  of 
Venetia  and  that  of  Hungary  or  Bohemia ;  that  nobody  consid- 
ered the  latter  kingdoms  as  being  anxious  for  complete  separation 
from  Austria,  but  merely  as  aiming  at  a  reform  in  their  adminis- 
tration —  a  question  about  which  foreigners  were  comparatively 
little  concerned.  Whereas,  on  the  contrary,  the  Italian  question 
engrossed  the  attention  of  the  political  world,  and  everywhere  it 
was  regarded  as  a  danger  to  the  peace  of  Europe.  He  said  it 
would  be  a  very  delicate  question  what  would  become  of  the 
province  of  Venetia  if  it  were  abandoned ;  that  it  might  possibly 
be  annexed  to  Piedmont,  and  there  would  probably  be  objections 
to  the  aggrandizement  of  the  military  monarchy.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Italian  states  might  quarrel^  or  fall  into  anarchy,  and 
call  for  the  intervention  of  neighboring,  states.  He  alluded  to 
the  serious  consideration  of  how  far  it  would  be  wise  in  Austria 
to  give  up  so  powerful  a  strategic  position  as  the  great  fortresses 
presented,  that  the  Italian  Tyrol  might  be  attacked,  or  the  terri- 
tory on  the  Adriatic,  etc.  I  said  that  the  wisest  course  for  Aus- 
tria would  be  to  give  the  full  control  of  their  future  destinies  to 
the  population  of  Venetia ;  that  a  magnanimous  policy  was  the 
best,  and  the  only  one  becoming  a  great  Empire ;  that  it  would, 
besides,  be  quite  useless  to  attempt  to  bind  the  people  of  Venetia, 
for  that  the  world  was  more  and  more  inclined  to  recognize  the 
rights  of  the  people  to  choose  their  own  mode  of  government,  and 
their  own  alliances  and  amalgamation;  and,  therefore,  that  if  the 
people  of  Venetia  chose  to  annex  themselves  ta  Piedmont,  it 
would  not  be  likely  that  any  Power  would  interfere  to  prevent 
them.  As  respected  the  great  fortresses,  I  said  that  I  would  not 
advise  their  being  given  up,  but  destroyed,  that  I  would  blow  them 
up,  and,  if  possible,  raze  them  to  the  ground. 

"  I  then  came  to  the  plain  statement  of  the  plan  I  would  fol- 
low. I  would  sell  the  independence  of  Venetia  for  a  large  sum, 
which  no  doubt  might  be  easily  arranged  ;  with  that  money,  say 
twenty  or  thirty  millions  sterling,  I  would  put  the  finances  of  the 
Austrian  Government  in  order,  restore  the  currency,  re-establish 
my  credit,  and  then  apply  myself  to  the  internal  reforms  of  the 
Empire.  I  knew  no  country  where  there  was  such  a  field  for  im- 
provement as  in  Austria ;  that  a  few  years  of  fiscal  and  commer- 
cial amelioration  would  add  immensely  to  the  wealth  and  power 
of  the  Empire ;  that,  even  with  the  loss  of  the  Italian  provinces, 
the  population  of  Austria  would  be  about  equal  to  that  of  France, 
and  greater  than  that  of  England,  and  would  contain  resources 
which,  if  properly  developed,  might  in  a  few  years  make  her  one 
of  the  richest  and  most  prosperous  countries  in. Europe.  I  at  the 
same  time  pointed  out  the  evils  which  must  arise  from  the  pres- 


V 


496  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

ent  state  of  the  finances  and  the  currency  in  Austria ;  that  all 
mercantile  operations,  arid  all  contracts  between  individuals,  must 
be  rendered  more  and  more  difficult  and  insecure,  so  long  as  the 
future  of  the  Empire  is  involved  in  so  much  uncertainty,  and 
whilst  the  circulating  medium  is  subjected  to  such  constant  de- 
preciation. 

"  The  Prince  showed  much  earnestness  of  feeling  in  his  conver- 
sation. He  wore  an  humbled  air,  as  well  he  might,  considering 
the  topic  on  which  we  were  conversing,  which  was  nothing  less 
than  whether  it  would  be  advisable  to  sell  a  part  of  the  Empire 
to  save  the  rest.  After  reiterated  apologies  for  the  liberty  I  had 
taken  in  calling  on  him,  which  he  received  in  the  best  possible 
spirit,  I  left  him.  If  I  could  spend  a  month  in  Vienna,  and  see 
the  leading  men  in  the  Government  circles  there,  I  feel  a  presen- 
timent that  I  could  bring  them  to  my  views  on  this  difficult  and 
important  subject." 

The  next  day  Cobden  started  for  the  south  of  Erance,  and  he 
remained  there  until  the  last  week  in  March.  He  made  Cannes 
his-  headquarters,  and  hoped  for  sunshine  and  warmth.  Unluckily, 
cloudy  skies  and  keen  winds  confirmed  his  opinion  that,  if  we 
would  make  sure  of  a  second  summer  in  the  year,  it  cannot  be 
had  in  Europe ;  men  must  imitate  the  swallows  and  migrate  into 
Africa.  Cobden's  elastic  and  joyful  temperament,  however,  atoned 
for  defects  of  climate,  and  his  diary  is  a  record  of  lively  excur- 
sions and  genial  intercourse  with  friends.  Among  his  daily  com- 
panions were  Bun  sen,  Henri  Martin,  Aries  Dufour,  Legouve, 
Merimee,  and  occasionally  Lord  Brougham.  Those  who  have 
been  accustomed  to  think  of  Cobden  as  wrapped  up  in  tariffs  and 
the  vulgarities  of  Parliament  might  well  be  amazed  at  the  eager- 
ness with  which  he  notes  the  house  to  which  Eachel  was  brought 
to  die,  and  the  circumstances  of  her  last  hours  ;  at  his  enthusiasm 
for  the  fine  landscapes  ;  at  the  sincerity  of  interest  with  which  he 
listened  for  long  hours  while  Bunsen  talked  to  him  about  Egyp- 
tian antiquities,  and  read  his  latest  successes  in  deciphering  hiero- 
glyphs. Every  day  brought  to  his  curious  and  observant  mind 
new  stores  of  information,  political,  social,  and  industrial,  and  still 
he  had  interest  left  for  gossip  and  the  trivialities  that  help  such 
men  across  from  one  serious  thought  to  another. 

The  people  of  the  country  wished  to  make  their  visitor  useful ; 
and  three  of  the  principal  inhabitants  of  Grasse  came  to  beg  of 
him  that  when  he  returned  to  Paris  he  would  say  a  w^ord  to  M. 
Rouher  in  favor  of  a  railroad  from  Grasse  to  Cannes.  "I  re- 
marked," says  Cobden,  "  that  in  England  a  rich  and  industrious 
community  like  theirs  would  have  a  meeting,  and  form  a  company 
to  make  a  line  for  themselves,  seeing  that  it  was  calculated  that 
it  would  pay  a  good  interest  for  the  investment.     They  replied 


iET.  56.]  HOLIDAY  AND  RETURN  TO  PARIS.  497 

that  it  was  not  their  way  of  doing  things  in  France ;  they  were 
accustomed  to  look  to  the  government  to  take  the  initiative ; 
and  as  other  parts  of  France  were  assisted  by  government,  they 
might  as  well  be  assisted  also.  They  said  that  in  the  month  of 
May,  when  the  flowers  were  brought  into  Grasse  for  making  them 
into  scented  waters,  pomades,  etc.,  one  house  would  sometimes 
receive  several  tons  of  rose-leaves  in  a  morning." 

In  the  course  of  his  stay,  Cobden  paid  a  visit  to  some  friends 
at  Nice,  wliere  the  expected  annexation  to  France  was  the  general 
topic  of  conversation  among  people  of  all  classes.  It  is  perhaps 
worth  while,  considering  the  violent  agitation  which  this  transac- 
tion was  shortly  to  rouse  in  England,  to  reproduce  Cobden's  im- 
pression of  the  public  feeling  on  the  spot :  —  "I  found  it  very 
difficult,"  he  says,  "  to  ascertain  the  prevailing  state  of  opinion  on 
the  subject.  As  a  general  rule,  I  found  that  people's  inclinations 
in  the  matter  followed  pretty  closely  the  direction  of  their  personal 
interests.  The  shopkeepers  and  tradespeople  of  the  town,  who 
thought  their  business  would  be  improved  by  the  change,  were  in 
favor  of  annexation.  The  professional  men,  the  advocates,  and 
lawyers,  whose  interests  would  suffer,  were  generally  opposed  to 
the  project.  The  landowners  and  peasants  were  said  by  some  to 
be  favorable,  and  by  others  to  be  opposed.  It  was  very  difficult 
to  ascertain  the  state  of  public  opinion,  for  almost  every  person  I 
consulted  differed  from  the  one  I  had  previously  talked  to. 
Sometimes  I  found  members  of  the  same  household  divided  in 
opinion.  Whilst  talking  to  M.  A.,  a  banker,  in  his  counting- 
house,  who  was  using  various  reasons  in  favor  of  annexation,  his 
clerks,  who  were  in  an  adjoining  office,  separated  by  a  glass  parti- 
tion, and  who  overheard  his  remarks,  were  expressing  by  signs  and 
gestures  their  dissent  from  his  remarks.  Again,  on  the  same  day, 
whilst  calling  on  M.  D.,  who  was  offering  an  opinion  to  the  effect 
that  the  population  generally  were  in  favor  of  the  proposed 
change,  he  was  contradicted  very  emphatically  by  a  lady  who  was 
present." 

On  the  2 2d  of  March,  Cobden  found  himself  once  more  in 
Paris. 

"  March  26.  —  Called  on  Lord  Cowley.  He  appeared  harassed 
and  worried.  Since  I  last  saw  him,  the  Savoy  question  had  come 
to  a  crisis ;  and  the  correspondence  had  all  been  published  in  a 
parliamentary  blue  book.  He  and  his  Secretary  of  Legation  com- 
plained of  the  practice  of  printing  the  despatches  giving  an  account 
of  the  conversations  held  with  foreign  ministers  or  other  person- 
ages, remarking  that  these  reports  of  what  passes  at  a  gossiping 
interview  may  be  very  proper  for  the  eye  of  a  Secretary  of  State, 
but  become  very  inconvenient  when  exposed  to  the  eye  of  the 

32 


498  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [I860. 

whole  world ;  that  their  publication  has  the  effect  of  making  min- 
isters of  state  unwilling  to  hold  oral  communications  with  diplo- 
matic agents.  Lord  C.  complained  of  the  conduct  of  the  Emperor 
in  the  Savoy  question  ;  alleged  broadly  that  he  had  been  deceived 
by  him ;  that  for  the  first  time  he  had  acted  in  sucli  a  way  as  to 
completely  destroy  all  confidence  in  future  in  him ;  he  stated  that 
he  had,  in  an  interview  with  the  Emperor,  told  him  frankly  that 
he  had  not  acted  towards  the  English  Government  and  its  ambas- 
sador with  the  openness  which  had  characterized  all  their  previous 
intercourse ;  that  it  was  less  the  question  of  the  annexation  of  Sa- 
voy than  the  way  in  which  it  was  effected,  which  caused  the  present 
coolness  and  alienation  between  the  two  Governments.  .  .  . 

"  March  28.  —  Called  on  M.  Fould,  the  Minister  of  State,  and 
had  half  an  hour's  conversation  with  him.  Speaking  of  the  mis- 
understanding which  had  arisen  between  the  French  and  English 
Governments  since  I  last  saw  him,  just  before  my  departure  for 
Cannes,  he  complained  of  Lord  John  Eussell,  our  Foreign  Minis- 
ter, and  observed  that  he  had  been  always  in  their  way ;  that  he 
was  opposed  to  the  Treaty  of  Villafranca,  and  afterwards  was  the 
chief  cause  why  the  terms  of  that  Treaty  were  not  carried  out  and 
the  Grand  Dukes  restored  to  their  sovereignties.  I  remarked  that 
it  was  utterly  out  of  the  question  that  force  should  have  been 
resorted  to  for  the  restoration  of  the  Dukes.  He  replied  that 
force  would  not  have  been  necessary  if  England  had  given  her 
moral  support  to  the  principle,  but  that  Lord  John  Eussell 
encouraged  the  Italian  people  to  resist  the  wishes  of  the  French 
Emperor,  and  thus  rendered  the  fulfilment  of  the  Treaty  of  Villa- 
franca impossible;  that  it  was  in  consequence  of  this  that  the 
change  in  the  Emperor's  plans  became  necessary,  and  that  the 
annexation  of  Savoy  was  afterwards  resorted  to  ;  that  if  the  terms 
of  the  Peace  of  Villafranca  could  have  been  carried  out,  France 
would  not  have  thought  of  any  extension  of  her  frontier.  In  the 
course  of  conversation,  he  said  that  the  English  Court  were  much 
opposed  to  the  French  Government,  and  that  Prince  Albert  was 
very  Austrian  in  his  sympathies. 

"  March  29.  —  Dined  with  Prince  Napoleon  and  the  Princess 
Clotilde,  and  met  a  large  party.  The  company  were  less  than  an 
hour  at  the  table.  The  present  Emperor  has  introduced  the  fash- 
ion of  using  great  despatch  at  the  dinner-table. 

"  March  30.  —  Had  an  audience  with  the  Emperor  in  the  morn- 
ing at  the  Tuileries.  After  saying  a  few  words  about  my  visit  to 
Cannes,  and  expressing  his  congratulations  that  the  British  Par- 
liament had  at  last  passed  the  Treaty  of  Commerce,  he  referred 
to  the  state  of  the  relations  between  his  Government  and  that  of 
England  upon  the  subject  of  the  annexation  of  Savoy  to  France. 
He  complained  of  the  manner  in  which  he  was  attacked,  and  in 


iET.56.]  HOLIDAY  AND  RETURN  TO  PARIS.  499 

which  his  conduct  and  motives  were  misrepresented  by  the  press 
of  England,  and  by  some  of  the  speakers  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. I  remarked  that  I  had  not  had  the  opportunity  of  reading 
the  papers  laid  before  Parliament  upon  the  Savoy  question,  and 
was  not  therefore  in  possession  of  the  facts  of  the  case,  but  as  lar 
as  I  understood  the  ground  of  the  misunderstanding  which  had 
unfortunately  arisen  between  the  two  governments,  since  I  last 
had  the  honor  of  an  audience  with  his  Majesty,  it  was  caused  less 
by  what  his  government  had  actually  done,  in  annexing  Savoy 
and  Nice  to  France,  than  by  the  manner  in  which  it  had  been 
effected.  He  then  volunteered  an  explanation  in  a  few  words  of 
what  had  been  his  course  from  the  beginning  on  this  question ; 
changing  from  English,  in  which  we  had  before  been  speaking,  to 
French,  for  the  more  convenient  and  rapid  delivery  of  his  narrative. 

"  He  said,  that,  previous  to  entering  on  the  war  against  Aus- 
tria, he  had  had  an  understanding  with  the  King  of  Sardinia  and 
Count  Cavour,  to  the  effect  that  if  the  result  should  be  the  driving 
of  the  Austrians  out  of  Lombardy  and  Venetia,  and  the  annexing 
of  those  provinces  to  Piedmont,  then  France  would  require  the 
fulfilment  of  two  conditions  on  the  part  of  the  King  of  Sardinia, 
viz.  the  payment  of  the  expenses  of  the  war  (which  the  Emperor 
said  had  amounted  to  300,000,000  francs),  and  the  cession  of 
Savoy  and  Nice.  These  terms  were  assented  to,  in  a  general  way, 
by  the  Government  of  Sardinia.  The  result  of  the  war  had  been 
less  decisive  than  he  had  expected ;  he  acquired  only  Lombardy, 
which  he  had  annexed  to  Piedmont,  without  the  intention  of 
claiming  Savoy,  and  not  intending  to  ask  for  more  than  a  portion 
of  the  expenses  of  the  war.  The  subsequent  events,  which  had 
induced  him  to  change  his  views,  were  wholly  unexpected  by  him, 
and  they  were  -brought  about  in  spite  of  his  efforts  to  prevent 
them.  Central  Italy  refused  to  take  back  its  former  rulers,  and 
insisted  on  annexation  to  Piedmont,  which  gave  the  latter  power 
as  large  an  acquisition  of  territory,  and  as  great  a  population  in 
Italy  (about  11,000,000),  as  if  Venetia  had  been  added  to  its 
dominions.  Under  these  circumstances  he  had  felt  justified  in 
claiming  the  cession  of  Savoy. 

"  After  finishing  this  narrative,  he  again  recurred  to  the  attacks 
and  misrepresentations  to  which  he  was  exposed.  He  said  he 
was  quite  desoU  to  find  that,  in  spite  of  his  frank  and  loyal  policy 
towards  other  Powers,  he  was  still  exposed  to  such  unjust  charges. 
I  remarked  that  too  much  importance  was  sometimes  attached  to 
the  strictures  of  a  newspaper  writer,  or  the  language  of  a  member 
of  the  House  of  Commons ;  that  he  knew  the  state  of  things  in 
England  too  well  to  require  to  be  told  that  any  writer  could  pub- 
lish whatever  he  pleased  anonymously,  and  that  a  member  of  the 
House  could  utter  whatever  opinions  he  liked ;  that  people  some- 


500  I^IT'E   OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

times  fell  into  the  error  of  regarding  the  utterances  of  an  indi- 
vidual, who  was  perhaps  actuated  by  very  unworthy  personal 
motives,  as  the  expression  of  a  large  public  opinion ;  and  I  added 
the  declaration  of  my  belief  that  this  misunderstanding  between 
the  two  countries  would  be  of  an  evanescent  character ;  that  it 
would  admit  of  explanations  which  would  remove  all  grounds  of 
serious  disagreement.  He  joined  in  the  expression  of  this  wish. 
1  then  observed  that  I  could  see  but  one  possible  cause  of  war 
between  the  two  countries ;  that  the  mercantile  and  manufac- 
turing and  milling  interests  have  the  power  and  determination  to 
keep  the  peace  so  long  as  it  is  their  interest  to  do  so ;  but  the 
danger,  and  in  my  own  opinion  the  only  danger,  was  that  the 
expenditure  for  our  warlike  armainents  might  be  so  increased  that 
it  would  some  day  be  possible  to  present  to  the  people  the  argu- 
ment that  war  might  be  less  costly  than  the  perpetual  burden  of 
a  war  expenditure  in  a  time  of  peace ;  that  I  had  heard  very 
sedate  and  grave  persons  argue  in  this  way ;  and  that,  leaving  out 
of  the  question  the  sacrifice  of  life  and  limb,  it  was  difficult  to 
answer  tlieir  reasoning  on  economical  grounds.  I  mentioned  the 
enormous  sums  we  were  voting  this  year  for  our  armaments. 

"  He  said  he  did  not  know  what  he  could  do  to  prevent  it,  or 
how  he  was  responsible  for  such  a  state  of  things  ;  that,  as  regarded 
the  navy,  he  was  not  spending  so  much  on  it  as  he  ought  to  do, 
or  as  was  laid  down  as  necessary  in  Louis  Philippe's  time ;  and 
he  referred  to  the  dialogue  between  an  Englishman  and  a  French- 
man, which  he  had  composed  and  sent  for  publication  to  the 
Times  newspaper ;  it  contained  some  exact  details  respecting  the 
strength  of  the  French  navy.  I  reminded  him  that  his  experi- 
ments on  iron-cased  ships  had  led  us  into  some  expenses  of  the 
same  kind,  I  mentioned  that  I  had  seen  one  of  his  fregatcs 
Uiiidees  at  Toulon,  with  an  iron  casing  about  four  inches  in 
thickness ;  that  no  sooner  were  they  ordered  to  be  built,  than  we 
began  to  construct  line-of-battle  ships  with  iron  sides  six  inches 
thick,  and  that  Mr.  Whitworth  had  subsequently  invented  a  gun 
which  had  projected  a  bullet  through  this  thickness  of  iron,  in 
addition  to  a  couple  of  feet  of  solid  timber ;  tliat  I  thought  all 
this  a  very  deplorable  waste,  and  unworthy  of  the  age  in  which 
w^e  lived. 

"  We  then  talked  of  the  Treaty  of  Commerce,  and  the  remaining 
details  which  are  yet  to  be  settled.  I  argued  that  it  was  more 
than  ever  desirable,  in  the  present  unsatisfactory  state  of  the 
relations  between  the  two  governments,  that  this  Treaty,  which 
was  intended  to  unite  the  peoples  of  France  and  England  in  the 
\y  bonds  of  commercial  dependence,  should  be  completely  carried 
out.  I  urged  several  reasons  why  the  duties  should  be  moderate. 
He  expressed  his  concurrence  in  this,  and  said  the  only  subject 


^T.56.]  HOLIDAY  AND   RETURN   TO   PARIS.  601 

on  which  he  felt  any  anxiety  was  that  of  iron  ;  that  the  difficulty 
was  the  want  of  railroads  to  convey  the  ore  to  the  coal;  that  in 
two  years'  time  he  hoped  this  evil  would  be  remedied. 

"On  my  rising  to  depart,  he  asked  me  to  accept  a  vase  as 
a  souvenir.  I  left  my  address  in  London  where  it  would  be 
delivered.     I  hope  it  will  be  of  small  value.^ 

"  March  31.  —  Dined  at  M.  Eouher's,  the  Minister  of  Commerce, 
where  a  large  party  was  assembled,  everybody  present  except 
myself  being  decorated  with  orders  and  ribbons.  I  sat  beside 
Prince  Napoleon,  and  had  a  good  deal  of  conversation  upon  the 

subject  of  our  rival  armaments He  did  not  think  it  was 

impossible  to  come  to  an  agreement  for  limiting  the  naval  forces 
of  the  two  countries ;  but  he  thought  that  whilst  our  aristocracy 
retained  its  present  power,  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  carry  out 
such  a  policy  in  England.  He  repeated  several  times,  and  with 
emphasis,  that  it* would  not  be  impossible  on  the  part  of  France. 
In  the  course  of  conversation,  when  speaking  of  the  inaptitude 
of  the  French  for  self-government,  he  remarked,  '  And  yet  they 
are  always  crying  out  for  liberty !  They  want  the  right  of  gov- 
erning themselves,  and  yet  they  claim  the  right  of  exempting 
themselves  from  the  duties  of  self-government.'  " 

A  day  or  two  after,  Cobden  returned  to  England.  And  here 
we  may  for  a  moment  turn  from  his  public  activity  to  say  so  much 
as  may  be  necessary  about  some  of  his  private  concerns.  The 
subject  is  painful  enough,  just  as  it  is  painful  even  at  this  distance \ 
of  time  to  think  of  Burke's  genius  being  humiliated  and  impeded 
by  the  straits  of  embarrassed  circumstances.  So  much  publicity,  ^ 
however,  was  given  to  Cobden's  affairs,  partly  by  the  spleen  of 
political  adversaries,  and  partly  by  the  indiscretion  of  friends, 
that  it  is  proper  to  describe  the  transaction  of  this  period  as  it 
really  was.  A  few  lines  fortunately  will  suffice.  We  have  seen 
that  of  the  sum  raised  in  1846  as  a  proof  of  the  public  gratitude 
for  his  services  in  the  cause  of  Free  Trade,  the  bulk  had  been 
employed  in  meeting  the  heavy  losses  incurred  in  Cobden's 
business,  during  the  time  when  he  was  absorbed  in  the  agitation 
against  the  Corn  Laws.  What  happened  to  the  balance  which 
had  been  invested  in  the  shares  of  the  Illinois  Central  Eailway, 
we  have  also  seen.  There  was,  moreover,  the  continued  drain  of 
the  chief  rent  on  the  unhappy  purchase  of  land  at  Manchester.^ 
The  upshot  was  that  after  his  return  from  the  United  States  Cob- 
den found  his  resources  practically  exhausted,  and  his  position 
had  become  extremely  serious. 

Under  these  circumstances  he  applied  to  one  of  his  oldest  and 

*  The  vase  may  be  seen  at  the  South  Kensington  Museum,  whither  Mrs.  Cobden 
sent  it  shortly  after  the  death  of  her  husband. 
2  Above,  pp.  107,  108. 


502  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

most  confidential  friends  in  Manchester  for  aid  and  advice.  What 
he  sought  was  that  a  few  men  who  could  afford  to  wait  for  a  return 
on  their  money,  might  be  induced  to  buy  the  building  land  from 
him  at  a  certain  valuation,  which  should  include  some  of  that 
prospective  value  which  he  insisted  on  seeing  in  it.  In  this  letter 
he  said  to  his  friend,  in  words  that  will  touch  all  who  can  think 
gently  of  a  man  for  taking  too  little  heed  of  his  own  interests, 
for  the  sake  of  the  commonwealth  :  "  My  hair,"  he  said,  "  has  been 
growing  gray  latterly  with  the  thoughts  of  what  is  to  become  of 
my  children.  If  I  were  to  consult  my  duty  to  them,  I  should 
withdraw  from  Parliament,  and  accept  some  public  employment, 
by  which  I  might  earn  2000/.  a  year.     The  present  Ministry  have, 

through  my  friend  Lord  H ,  sounded  me  as  to  my  willingness 

to  take  such  an  ofiftce.     But  I  see  the  difficulty  of  justifying  my 

withdrawal  from  Parliament  at  the  present  time It  is  one 

of  the  miseries  of  a  public  man's  life  that  he  must  be  liable  under 
such  circumstances  to  have  his  private  troubles  gibbeted  before 
the  whole  world."  ^ 

It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  the  course  of  what  followed.     It 
/was  found  that  nothing  effectual  could  be  done  with  the  land. 
/  So  a  little  group  of  Cobden's  most  intimate  friends  took  counsel 
^      together,  and  in  the  end  a  subscription  was  privately  raised  which 
amounted  to  the  sum  of  40,000/.     The  names  of  those  who  con- 
tributed to  it,  between  ninety  and  a  hundred  persons  in  all,  he 
never  knew.     He  requested  that  a  list  might  be  given  to  him  in 
a  sealed  cover.     After  his  death  the  executors  found  the  envelope 
in  his  desk,  with  the  seal  still  unbroken.     Such  an  endowment 

ywas  a  gracious  and  munificent  testimonial  to  his  devoted  public 
spirit.  The  fact  that  Cobden  had  so  richly  earned  the  gift,  made 
him,  as  it  may  make  us,  none  the  less  sensible  of  the  considerate 
liberality  of  the  givers. 


CHAPTEK  XXXI. 

THE  TAKIFF — THE   FORTIFICATION   SCHEME. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  Treaty 
in  England.  They  belong  rather  to  our  fiscal  and  parliamentary 
history,  than  to  the  biography  of  one  of  the  negotiators.  The 
Treaty  was  laid  before  Parliament  by  Lord  John  Eussell,  and 
its  provisions  were  fully  explained,  along  with  the  changes  which 

1  To  Mr.  John  Slagg.     Sept.  5,  1859. 


j;t.56.]  the  tariff.  503 

the  Government  proposed  in  our  fiscal  system  as  a  consequence 
of  this  Treaty,  by  Mr.  Gladstone  in  a  memorable  speech  (Feb.  10) 
which  for  lucidity  and  grasp  has  never  been  surpassed.  He  did 
not  forget  to  pay  a  just  tribute  to  his  absent  colleague.  "Rare," 
said  Mr.  Gladstone,  "  is  the  privilege  of  any  man  who  having 
fourteen  years  ago  rendered  to  his  country  one  signal  and  splen- 
did service,  now  again  within  the  same  brief  span  of  life,  deco- 
rated neither  by  rank  nor  title,  bearing  no  mark  to  distinguish 
him  from  the  people  whom  lie  serves,  has  been  permitted  again 
to  perform  a  great  and  memorable  service  to  his  country." 

The  leader  of  the  Opposition  did  not  fall  far  behind  in  civil 
words,  while  conveying  in  his  compliment  to  Cobden  a  character- 
istic sneer  at  the  hated  Whigs.  Mr.  Disraeli  (Feb.  20)  took 
credit  for  having  recognized  the  great  ability  and  the  honorable 
and  eminent  position  of  the  secret  agent  of  the  Treaty,  long 
before  they  had  been  recognized  by  those  "  sympathizing  states- 
men of  whom  he  was  somehow  doomed  never  to  be  the  col- 
league." But  at  the  same  time,  he  detected  in  the  Treaty  the 
idiosyncrasies  of  the  negotiator :  he  saw  the  negotiator's  strong 
personal  convictions  in  the  wanton  sacrifice  of  so  many  sources 
of  revenue;  he  saw  it  in  the  light  treatment  of  belligerent 
rights. 

Then  the  parliamentary  battle  began  according  to  the  well- 
known  rules.  Private  secretaries  rapidly  hunted  up  the  circum- 
stances of  Pitt's  Commercial  Treaty  of  1786,  and  their  chiefs  set 
to  work  to  show  that  the  precedent  had  been  accurately  followed, 
or  else,  if  they  happened  to  sit  on  the  other  side  of  the  House, 
that  it  had  been  most  unreasonably  departed  from.  Men  whose 
intellectual  position  was  so  strong  as  that  of  Sir  James  Graham 
and  Earl  Grey,  protested  against  the  policy  of  commercial  trea- 
ties. One  member,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  still  happily 
alive  and  vocal,  asked  if  it  had  come  to  this  —  that  the  free  Par- 
liament of  England  sat  to  register  the  decrees  of  the  despot  of 
France.  There  was  the  usual  abundance  of  predictions,  in  which 
the  barely  possible  was  raised  to  the  degree  of  probable  or  certain, 
and  to  which  the  only  answer  was  that  men  were  not  bound  to 
believe  them.  The  great  authority  from  the  city  prophesied  that 
there  would  be  no  permanent  enlargement  of  our  trade  with 
France  as  a  consequence  of  the  Treaty.  Mr.  Disraeli  declared 
that  he  had  always  strongly  desired  an  improvement  of  our  com- 
mercial relations  with  France,  and  even  if  that  improvement  took 
the  form  of  a  commercial  treaty  he  could  endure  it :  but  this  was 
a  bad  treaty  ;  it  was  calculated  to  sow  the  seeds  of  discord  and 
dissension  between  the  two  countries.  Mr.  Disraeli's  chief  in  the 
House  of  Lords  argued  that  the  time  was  inopportune  for  a  re- 
duction of  the  sources  of  revenue ;  and  he  pointed  out  that  the 


604  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [I860. 

Treaty  admitted  to  France  articles  of  vital  importance  for  pur- 
poses of  war,  and  the  Government  itself  acted  in  other  respects  as 
if  war  were  not  improbable.  Here  Lord  Derby  made  a  point,  as 
/  Cobden  would  have  been  the  first  to  admit.  The  policy  of  1860 
was  a  double  policy.  The  Treaty  implied  confidence  in  peace, 
while  the  estimates  implied  a  strong  expectation  of  war.  If  war 
were  as  near  a  contingency  as  the  tone  of  some  of  the  Ministers 
seemed  to  show,  then  the  budget  of  1860  was  open  to  the  criti- 
cism on  the  budget  of  1853,  the  great  peace  budget  which  imme- 
diately preceded  the  Crimean  War. 

After  much  skirmishing,  the  real  debate  came  on  rn  the  House 
of  Commons,  on  a  motion  that  it  was  not  expedient  to  diminish  the 
sources  of  revenue,  nor  to  reimpose  the  income  tax  at  a  need- 
lessly high  rate.  The  discussion  extended  over  three  nights,  and 
at  the  end  of  it  the  division  gave  to  the  Government  a  major- 
ity of  116.  Mr.  Gladstone  had  met  happily  enough  the  serious 
objections,  as  distinguished  from  those  which  were  invented  in 
the  usual  way  of  party  business.  Nothing,  he  said,  was  given 
to  France  which  was  of  any  value  to  us.  On  the  other  hand, 
nothing  was  received  from  France  excej^t  a  measure  by  which 
V  that  country  conferred  a  benefit  upon  itself  At  a  small  loss  of 
revenue  we  had  gained  a  great  extension  of  trade.  These  propo- 
sitions told  with  great  weight  against  the  theoretic  objection  that 
a  commercial  treaty  tends  to  mislead  nations  as  to  the  true  nature 
of  the  transaction.  In  any  case  this  was  an  objection  which  was 
very  little  calculated  to  affect  a  body  endowed  with  the  rough  and 
blunt  intellectual  temper  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

On  his  arrival  in  London,  meanwhile,  at  the  beginning  of 
April,  Cobden  found  that  the  Government  had  determined  to 
^  send  out  a  Commission  to  arrange  the  details  of  the  tariff.  The 
Commission  was  to  consist  of  a  chief  and  two  official  subordi- 
nates. The  subordinates  had  already  been  named :  one  from  the 
Board  of  Trade,  and  another  from  the  Customs.  The  latter  w^as 
represented  by  Mr.  E.  A.  Ogilvie,  the  late  Surveyor  General  of 
Customs,  and  the  Board  of  Trade  was  represented  by  Mr.  Louis 
Mallet,  who  speedily  impressed  Cobden,  as  the  diaries  show,  by 
his  strong  intelligence  and  efficiency,  and  who  afterwards  became 
one  of  the  most  eminent  advocates  of  Cobden's  principles  to  be 
found  among  English  statesmen.  The  Government  thought  that 
it  would  be  beneath  Cobden's  dignity  to  accept  the  office  of  chief 
commissioner  and  to  correspond  with  the  Board  of  Trade,  after 
having  been  a  plenipotentiary  and  having  corresponded  with  the 
Foreign  Office.  Cobden  began  to  fear  that  the  chief  who  might 
be  appointed  would  not  prove  quite  a  man  after  his  own  heart,  so, 
he  says,  "  as  I  felt  no  concern  whatever  about  the  loss  of  dignity, 
I  volunteered  to  come  out  to  Paris  myself  as  chief  commissioner. 


^T.  56.]  THE  TARIFF.  505 

and  to  sign  the  supplementary  treaty  as  plenipotentiary  when  it 
is  completed.  1  am  afraid  I  have  undertaken  a  very  difficult  and 
tedious  task.  But  having  begun  the  good  work,  I  must  pursue  it 
to  the  end,  and  probably  I  could  not  transfer  it  to  other  hands 
without  damage  to  the  cause."  ^ 

In  fact,  it  was  clear  that  tliough  the  diplomatic  or  political  part 
of  the  work  had  been  effectually  done,  the  more  difficult  comnier-  ^ 
cial  part  still  remained.  The  Treaty  was  hardly  more  than  a 
rough  and  provisional  sketch.  When  it  reached  the  Board  of 
Trade  the  amazement  of  that  office  was  not  altogether  pleasur- 
able, for  a  department  is  capable  of  self-love,  and  the  officials 
privately  felt  that  they  had  been  made  rather  light  of.  It  was 
soon  perceived  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  their  office  the 
Treaty  did  not  carry  things  far.  In  the  first  article  the  Emperor 
had  engaged  that  in  no  case  should,  the  duties  on  a  long  list  of 
articles  of  British  production  and  manufacture  exceed  thirty  per 
cent.  This  was  to  be  the  limit.  But  a  duty  of  thirty  per  cent 
was  nearly  as  bad  as  prohibition.  All  depended  on  the  results 
of  the  thirteenth  article.  Article  thirteen  ran  to  the  effect  that 
the  ad  valorem  duties  established  within  the  limits  fixed  by  the 
preceding  articles  should  be  converted  into  specific  duties  by  a 
Supplementary  Convention.^ 

If  it  appears  absurd  that  Cobden  should  ever  have  been  con- 
tent with  an  arrangement  that  left  the  French  with  a  possible 

1  To  M.  Chevalier.     April  14,  1860. 

2  It  may  be  convenient  hei^  to  reproduce  the  description  of  the  terms  of  the 
Treaty,  from  Mr.  Gladstone's  speech  explaining  it  to  the  House  of  Commons:  — 
"  First,"  he  said,  "  I  will  take  the  engagements  of  Fi-ance.  France  engages  to 
reduce  the  duty  on  English  coal  and  coke,  from  the  1st  of  July,  1860  ;  on  bar  and 
pig  iron  and  steel,  from  the  1st  of  October,  1860;  on  tools  and  machinery,  from  the 
1st  of  December,  1860;  and  on  yarns  and  goods  in  llax  and  hemp,  including,  I 
believe,  jute, — this  last  an  article  comparatively  new  in  commerce,  but  one  in 
which  a  great  and  very  just  interest  is  felt  in  some  great  trading  districts,  —  from 
the  1st  of  June,  1861.  That  is  the  first  important  engagement  into  which  France 
enters.  Her  second  and  greater  engagement  is  postponed  to  the  1st  of  October, 
1861.  I  think  it  is  probably  in  the  knowledge  of  the  Committee  that  this  post- 
ponement is  stipulated  under  a  pledge  given  by  the  Government  of  France  to  the 
classes  who  there,  as  here,  have  supposed  themselves  to  be  interested  in  the  main- 
tenance of  prohibition.  On  the  1st  of  October,  then,  in  the  year  1861,  Fmnce 
engages  to  reduce  the  duties  and  to  take  away  the  prohibitions  on  all  the  articles  of 
British  production  mentioned  in  a  certain  list,  in  such  a  manner  that  no  duty  uymn 
any  one  of  those  articles  shall  thereafter  exceed  thirty  per  cent  nd  valorem.  I  do 
not  speak  of  articles  of  food,  which  do  not  materially  enter  into  the  treaty;  but  the 
list  to  which  1  refer,  includes  all  the  staples  of  British  manufacture,  whether  of 
yarns,  flax,  hemp,  hair,  wool,  silk,  or  cotton,  — all  manufactures  of  skins,  leather, 
bark,  wood;  iron,  and  all  other  metals;  glass,  stoneware,  earthenware,  or  porcelain. 
I  will  not  go  through  the  whole  list;  it  is  intleed  needless,  for  I  am  not  aware  of 
any  great  or  material  article  that  is  omitted.  France  also  engages  to  commute  those 
ad  valorem  duties  into  rated  duties  hy  a  separate  convention,  to  be  framed  for  the 
purpose  of  giving  effect  to  the  terms  I  have  described.  But  if  Xheve  should  be  a 
disagreement  as  to  the  terms  on  which  they  should  be  rated  under  the  convention, 
then  the  rriaximum  chargeable  on  every  class  at  thirty  per  cent  ad  valorem  will  be 


506  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [I860. 

protection  so  high  as  thirty  per  cent,  we  must  recall  the  condi- 
tions of  the  case.  Hitherto  the  system  in  France  had  been  one 
of  absolute  prohibition.  It  was  the  system  of  monopolies  in  all 
its  perfection  and  completeness.  Suddenly  to  break  down  this 
X^high  wall  of  exclusion  was  politically  impossible.  To  tell  the 
great  ironmasters,  the  cotton-spinners,  the  woollen  manufactures, 
that  they  were  to  pass  at  a  step  from  monopoly  to  free  competi- 
tion, would  be  to  shake  the  very  Throne.  A  duty  in  their  favor 
of  no  more  than  ten  per  cent  would  have  seemed  a  mockery  to 
men  who  had  been  accustomed  to  command  their  own  prices. 
The  Emperor  dared  not  open  the  battle  with  a  lower  protection 
than  thirty  per  cent.  It  was  for  the  English  Government  to  have 
this  brought  down  to  as  near  ten  per  cent  as  they  could.  M. 
Kouher,  who  believed  faithfully  in  free  competition,  hoped  and 
intended  that  this  process  of  beating  down  the  great  duty  allowed 
by  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  should  be  effectively  carried  out. 
Cobden  knew  much  better  than  his  critics  how  much  remained 
to  be  done ;  but  then  he  trusted  M.  Eouher  and  the  Emperor. 
This  was  the  merit  of  his  diplomacy,  that  he  knew  whom  he 
could  trust ;  and  he  always  felt  that  here,  and  not  in  perpetual 
suspicion,  is  the  secret  of  effective  and  wise  diplomacy,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  policy  of  craft  and  war.  The  result  showed 
in  the  present  instance,  that  the  Emperor  and  M.  Eouher  de- 
served his  confidence. 

Cobden  arrived  in  Paris  on  April  20th,  and  it  was  the  5th  of 
November  before  his  labors  were  concluded.  They  were  of  the 
most  toilsome  and  fatiguing  kind.  The  circumstances  were  with- 
out precedent  or  example,  and  the  whole  course  of  procedure 
had  to  be  created.  When  the  English  commissioners  reached 
Paris,  they  found  that  the  French  Government  had  agreed  to 
refer  the  subject  of  the  rates  of  duty  to  the  Conseil  Superieur,  a 
body  rarely  convoked,  and  consisting  of  the  greatest  commercial 

levied  at  the  proper  period,  not  in  the  form  of  a  rated  duty,  but  upon  the  value ; 
and  the  value  will  be  determined  by  the  process  now  in  use  in  the  English 
customs. 

"I  come  next,  sir,  to  the  English  covenants.  England  engages,  with  a  limited 
power  of  exception,  which  we  propose  to  exercise  only  with  regard  to  two  or  three 
articles,  to  abolish  immediately  and  totally  all  duties  upon  all  manufactured  goods. 
There  will  be  a  sweep,  summary,  entire,  and  absolute,  of  what  are  known  as  manu- 
factured goods  from  the  face  of  the  British  tariff.  Faither,  England  engages  to 
reduce  the  duty  on  brandy,  from  15s.  the  gallon  to  the  level  of  the  colonial  duty, 
viz.  8s.  2d.  per  gallon.  She  engages  to  reduce  immediately  the  duty  on  foieign 
wine.  In  the  treaty  it  is  of  course  French  wine  which  is  specified;  but  it  is  per- 
fectly understood  between  France  and  ourselves,  that  we  proceed  with  regard  to  the 
commodities  of  all  countries  alike.  England  engages,  then,  to  reduce  the  duty  on 
wine,  from  a  rate  nearly  reaching  5s.  10c?.  per  gallon,  to  3s.  per  gallon.  She 
engages,  besides  a  present  reduction,  farther  to  reduce  that  duty  from  the  1st  of 
April,  1861,  to  a  scale  which  has  reference  to  the  strength  of  the  wine  measured  by 
the  q^uantity  of  spirit  it  contains." 


iET.56.]     .  THE  TARIFF.  507 

men  in  France.  The  Conseil  Sup^rieur  took  evidence  from 
French  and  English  manufacturers  and  producers,  as  to  the  com- 
parative cost  of  production  in  the  two  countries.  Iron  had  been 
dealt  with  in  the  Treaty  itself,  and  it  was  the  only  article  on 
which  the  rate  was  there  definitely  fixed.  All  other  articles  were 
left  open.  What  Cobden  and  his  colleagues  had  to  do  was  in  the 
first  instance  to  prepare  the  English  witnesses,  to  collect  and 
shape  their  evidence,  and  to  have  it  carefully  translated  for  the 
Conseil  Superieur.  This  tedious  process  lasted  until  the  end  of 
July.  It  was  August  before  the  sittings  of  the  definitive  Com-  ^ 
mission  began.  The  business  which  Cobden  and  his  two  official 
colleagues  had  now  to  do,  was  nothing  less  than  to  go  through 
the  whole  list  of  British  products  and  manufactures,  and  to 
prove  in  each  case  to  the  French  Commissioners  that  from  the 
circumstances  of  the  special  trade  they  ought  to  be  content  with 
a  given  duty.  Every  day  at  two  o'clock  the  three  Englishmen 
sat  round  a  table  in  one  of  the  saloons  of  the  palace  in  the  Quai 
d'Orsai,  with  about  three  times  as  many  representatives  of  the 
hostile  interests  of  France.  The  various  products  of  British  / 
industry  came  up  in  turn.  The  French  Commissioners  cried  for  ^ 
their  import  duty  of  thirty  per  cent.  Cobden  called  for  ten  per 
cent.  Then  the  battle  began.  The  English  numbered  no  more 
than  the  Graces,  while'  the  French  were  as  many  as  the  Muses. 
The  French,  in  strategical  language,  were  close  to  their  base  of 
operations,  for  if  they  wanted  more  knowledge  as  to  a  given 
trade,  there  were  men  who  were  quite  able  and  only  too  happy 
to  supply  it  in  the  next  street  or  in  the  anteroom.  The  English- 
men were  dependent  on  the  accident  of  the  right  man  having 
come  to  Paris  from  home.  They  were  obliged  to  represent  all 
branches  of  industry,  to  master  the  important  facts  of  a  hundred 
special  trades,  to  meet  from  their  own  second-hand  knowledge, 
picked  up  the  evening  before  and  digested  in  the  forenoon,  an- 
tagonists whose  knowledge  was  personal  and  acquired  by  a  life's 
experience.  The  enterprise  called  for  nothing  less  than  the  dex- 
terity and  pliancy  of  a  first-rate  advocate,  united  to  the  dogged 
industry  of  the  compiler  of  a  commercial  encyclopaedia.  Iron 
gave  most  trouble.  Though  the  rate  had  been  fixed  in  the 
Treaty,  the  classification  of  its  descriptions  remained.  The  iron- 
masters, Cobden  told  Mr.  Bright,  "  are  the  landed  interest  of 
France.  They  constitute  the  praetorian  guards  of  monopoly. 
Almost  everybody  of  rank  and  wealth  is  directly  or  indirectly 
interested  in  iron-works  of  some  kind.  Bankers,  courtiers,  au- 
thors (Thiers  and  St.  Marc  Girardip,  to  wit),  bishops,  and  priests, 
are  to  be  found  in  the  ranks  of  the  ironmasters.  M.  Schneider — 
the  Duke  of  Richmond  of  the  interest  —  is  one  of  the  Commis- 
sion sitting  to  try  himself     The  French  witnesses,  of  course,  all 


508  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [I860. 

tell  the  old  story  of  alarm  and  ruin,  and  discourse  most  feelingly 
of  the  misery  which  their  workpeople  will  suffer  if  their  protec- 
tion be  withdrawn I  am  transported  back  twenty  years." 

Apart  from  the  monotony  of  these  proceedings,  what  to  Cobden 
was  harder  to  bear  than  tedium  was  the  dishonesty  and  bad  faith 
of  some  of  those  with  whom  he  had  to  deal.  The  more  unscrupu- 
lous among  the  protectionists  falsified  the  facts  of  their  various 
trades,  and  played  dishonest  tricks  with  returns  of  cost,  wages, 
and  prices.  On  one  occasion,  a  French  commissioner,  who  liad 
made  himself  the  mouthpiece  of  the  protectionists,  tried  to  counter 
some  demand  of  Cobden's  by  one  of  these  fabrications.  Cobden, 
worn  out  by  the  iteration  of  su.ch  shameless  devices,  could  no 
longer  contain  himself,  and  in  angry  tones  called  out  too  crude  a 
statement  of  the  truth.  But  he  was  usually  as  long-suifering  as 
he  was  tenacious.  There  was  one  member  of  the  Commission  on 
the  French  side  whose  conduct  gave  him  constant  encouragement 
and  support.  Every  day  brought  fresh  proof  of  the  ability,  moral 
courage,  sincerity,  and  good  faith  of  M.  Eouher.  These  are  Cob- 
den's own  words,  and  he  adds  with  enthusiasm  that  his  name 
will  go  down  to  posterity  as  the  Huskisson  or  Peel  of  France. 
No  ordinary  man  could  have  effected  in  a  twelvemonth  changes 
which  in  England  were  spread  over  twenty  years. 

The  strain  of  the  conflict  and  its  preparation,  both  on  Cob- 
den and  his  colleagues,  was  very  great.  The  discussions  at  the 
Foreign  Office  usually  lasted  from  two  until  six  o'clock,  when 
they  went  to  dine.  Later  in  the  evening  came  laborious  inter- 
views with  commercial  experts  from  England,  who  brought  tables, 
returns,  extracts  from  ledgers.  Commercial  friends  at  home  were 
apt  to  be  impatient,  and  Cobden  was  obliged  to  write  long  letters 
of  encouragement  and  exhortation.  In  the  morning,  after  two  or 
three  hours  devoted  to  correspondence  and  further  interviews, 
soon  after  eleven  Cobden  proceeded  to  the  offices  of  the  English 
commissioners  in  the  Eue  de  I'Universite,  where  his  colleagues 
had  already  arranged  the  matter  acquired  in  the  previous  evening. 
This  they  examined  and  discussed  and  prepared  for  the  meeting 
at  two  o'clock,  when  the  encounter  was  once  more  opened. 

Occasional  relief  was  enjoyed  in  varied  social  intercourse.  There 
were  great  official  banquets  with  ministers  of  state,  blazing  with 
stars  and  decorations.  There  were  the  balls  and  receptions  of  the 
ministers'  wives,  where  Cobden  ungallantly  noted  that  the  num- 
ber of  handsome  toilettes  was  more  striking  than  the  beauty  of 
their  wearers.  He  was  taken  one  day  to  see  the  studio  of  Ary 
Scheffer ;  and  on  another  day  he  went  with  Clara  Novello  to  visit 
Rossini  at  his  villa  at  Passy.  The  composer's  vivacity  and  clever- 
ness pleased  Cobden,  and  he  was  perhaps  not  displeased  when 
the  old  man  asked  why  the  English  were  in  a  panic,  and  declared 


J3T.56.]  THE  TARIFF.  509 

his  indignation  at  such  childishness  in  a  great  nation  for  whom 
he  had  all  his  life  long  felt  the  deepest  respect.  One  night  at 
the  table  of  Aries  Dufour,  Cobden  met  Enfaiitin,  the  head  of  the 
Saint  Simonians,  and  the  most  wonderful  and  impressive  figure  in 
the  history  of  modern  enthusiasm.  The  party  sat  until  midniglit, 
talking  over  the  question  of  a  mutual  limitation  of  the  armaments 
of  France  and  England,  and  all  agreed  that  unless  something  were 
done  to  put  a  stop  to  this  Avarlike  rivalry,  a  conflict  must  inevi- 
tably break  out.  "  If  you  would  preserve  peace^'  said  Enfantin, 
amending  the  saying  of  the  old  world,  "  then  prepare  for  peace'' 

Cobden  was  more  than  once  a  guest  at  the  house  of  the  Mar- 
quis de  Boissy,  and  the  more  famous  Marquise,  better  known  as 
the  Countess  Guiccioli.  Cobden's  simple  mind  was  surprised  at 
the  fact  that,  so  far  from  having  lost  caste  by  the  notoriety  of  her 
relations  with  Lord  Byron,  the  lady  moved  in  the  highest  circles 
in  Paris  and  was  much  sought  after.  The  Marquis  was  a  strong 
old  Tory,  vigorously  opposed  to  Free  Trade  and  every  other  re- 
form; he  predicted  that  the  Emperor's  concessions  to  England 
would  be  his  ruin ;  confidently  foretold  a  reign  of  terror  for  Italy, 
the  death  of  Victor  Emmanuel  on  the  scaffold,  and  "  many  other 
equally  pleasant  and  probable  events."  Cobden  listened  to  all 
this  nonsense  with  unruffled  humor,  as  was  his  wont ;  few  men 
have  ever  been  better  able  to  suffer  fools  gladly.  Only  once  he 
nearly  broke  down,  when,  at  a  fete  given  by  an  American  of  high 
position  to  celebrate  the  Fourth  of  July,  the  host  made  a  speech 
to  French  and  English  guests  in  that  singularly  bad  taste  which 
American  orators  so  often  think  due  to  the  majesty  of  their 
country.  Cobden  was  always  a  missionary.  At  a  dinner  where 
most  of  the  guests  happened  to  be  eminent  surgeons  and  physi- 
cians, he  tried  hard  to  enlist  them  against  vivisection  as  practised 
at  the  Veterinary  College ;  "  but  I  am  afraid,"  he  says,  "  that  I 
did  not  meet  with  much  success."  He  delighted  in  everything 
that  extended  his  knowledge  of  men  and  cities.  On  the  occasion 
of  the  Emperor's  fete  (Aug.  15),  he  walked  about  the  streets  all 
the  evening,  and  observing  that  the  great  thorougli lares  were 
closed  against  carriages,  and  kept  clear  for  the  exclusive  use  of 
pedestrians  from  seven  until  ten,  he  marks  that  "  such  considera-  • 
tion  would  not  have  been  shown  to  the  masses  at  the  expense  of 
the  rich  and  luxurious  classes  in  England." 

There  was  one  group  with  whom  after  a  very  short  experience 
Cobden  found  it  impossible  to  carry  on  any  intercourse.  "  I  have 
ceased  to  go  among  the  Orleanist  party,"  he  told  Mr.  Bright; 
"they  are  hardly  rational  or  civil."  Whatever  we  may  think  of 
the  Empire,  there  can  only  be  one  opinion  of  its  Orleanist  foes,  that 
eyeless,  impotent,  shifty  faction,  who  dreamed  and  dream  on  that 
kingdoms  can  be  governed  by  literary  style,  and  that  the  mighty 


510  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

agitations  of  a  newly  revolutionized  society  can  be  ruled  by  the 
petty  combinations  and  infantile  tactics  of  drawing-room  intrigue. 
'  A  break  in  the  tedium  of  his  work,  but  perhaps  a  break  of 
doubtful  refreshment,  is  mentioned  in  a  letter  to  his  friend  Mr. 
Hargreaves:  —  "For  the  last  three  days,"  he  says,  "I  have  been  at- 
tending the  debates  in  the  Corps  Legislatif  on  the  Treaty.  The  scene 
reminded  me  of  our  own  old  doings  in  the  House  of  Commons 
twenty  years  ago.-  The  protectionists  were  very  savage.  Being 
recognized  in  the  strangers'  tribune,  I  became  the  object  of  attack 
and  defence.  It  was  really  the  old  thing  over  again.  As  I  was 
leaving  the  house  in  a  shower  of  rain,  one  of  the  members  who 
avowed  himself  a  protectionist,  offered  me  his  umbrella,  and  he 
remarked,  '  If  we  had  been  still  under  the  constitutional  regime, 
your  Treaty  would  never  have  passed.  Not  twenty-five  members 
of  the  Chamber  would  have  been  for  it.' "  ^ 

Of  one  or  two  of  the  most  important  of  Cobden's  conversations, 
it  is  worth  while  to  transcribe  the  reports  from  his  own  journal. 
On  March  25  he  met  Count  Persigny,  who  was  then  on  one  of  his 
frequent  visits  from  Albert  Gate  to  Paris. 

"  He  expressed  himself,"  says  Cobden,  "  in  strong  terms  to  me 
upon  the  subject  of  the  present  system  of  government  in  France ; 
says  the  Emperor  has  no  independent  responsible  ministers ;  that 
he  governs,  himself,  in  the  minutest  details  of  administration ; 
that  he  has  been  gradually  more  and  more  assuming  to  himself 
all  the  powers  of  the  State ;  that  for  two  years  after  the  forma- 
tion of  the  Imperial  government  there  were  men  in  his  Cabinet, 
such  as  Drouyn  de  I'Huys,  St.  Arnaud,  and  himself  (Persigny), 
who  exercised  an  independent  judgment  on  his  projects,  and  that 
he  was  then  willing  to  yield  to  the  advice  and  arguments  of  his 
council,  but  that  latterly  he  had  been  accustomed  to  act  upon  his 
own  impulse,  or  only  to  consult  one  of  his  Ministers ;  that  his 
Cabinet  frequently  found  decrees  in  the  Moniteur  of  which  they 
had  never  lieard,  and  that  this  habit  of  secret  and  personal  man- 
agement opened  the  door  to  all  kinds  of  intrigues,  and  gave  the 
opportunity  for  unworthy  individuals,  male  and  female,  to  exer- 
cise an  irresponsible  and  improper  influence  over  the  acts  of  the 
Emperor.  He  blamed  M.  Fould  for  having  encouraged  and 
flattered  the  Emperor  into  this  habit  of  ruling  by  his  personal 
will,  independent  of  his  Ministers,  by  which  he  was  bringing 
great  danger  on  his  dynasty ;  that  he  had  not  the  genius  of  the 
first  Napoleon,  to  whom  his  flatterers  compared  him,  or  his  mas- 
tery of  details ;  and  that  in  attempting  to  interfere  with  every- 
thing, nothing  was  properly  superintended.  That  he  (Count  de 
P.)  was  very  unhappy  at  this  state  of  things ;  that  he  had  been 
for  some  years  remonstrating  against  it ;  that  he  was  now  penning 

1  To  William  Hargreaves.     May  2,  1860. 


j:t.56.]  the  tariff.  511 

another  memorial  on  the  subject,  a  rough  copy  of  which  he  had 
in  his  pocket ;  and  that  if  he  failed  to  effect  the  desired  reform, 
he  should  retire  from  the  service  of  the  Emperor,  and  withdraw 
altogether  from  public  life ;  that  he  was  entitled  to  a  salary  of 
1200/.  a  year  as  senator,  or  to  a  pension  of  4000/.  a  year  as  privy 
councillor ;  that  he  should  not  accept  either,  but  would  gather 
together  his  small  private  fortune  and  retire  upon  that." 

"  April  26.  —  Called  on  M.  Herbet,  the  Chairman  of  the  French 
commission  for  arranging  the  details  of  the  Treaty.  M.  Herbet 
had  been  six  years  Consul  at  London.  In  the  course  of  conver- 
sation he  remarked  good-humoredly  upon  the  aristocratic  manners 
of  the  English  people.  When  he  went  first  to  London  he  was  a 
junior  attache  to  the  Embassy,  and  he  was  then  a  welcome  guest 
at  the  tables  of  the  great;  but -when  he  was  appointed  Consul- 
general,  with  important  duties  and  40,000  francs  per  annum,  he 
was  no  longer  comme  ilfaut,  and  found  himself  hardly  worthy  to 
be  the  guest  of  our  principal  merchants. 

"  May  20.  —  Breakfasted  with  Emile  de  Girardin,  -and  after- 
wards sat  with  him  in  his  g^fi^den  whilst  he  gave  me  the  Bona- 
parte programme  of  foreign  policy,  which  in  brief  amounted  to 
this  :  —  that  France  must  extend  her  frontier  to  the  Rhine,  after 
which  the  Emperor  could  afford  to  grant  political  liberty  to 
his  people ;  that  all  Belgium,  with  the  exception  of  Brussels 
and  Antwerp,  would  willingly  annex  itself  to  France ;  that  the 
German  provinces  to  the  left  of  the  Rhine,  though  not  speaking 
French,  were  Catholic,  and  therefore  inclined  towards  annexa- 
tion, and  might  be  bribed  by  a  promise  of  an  exemption  from 
taxation  for  a  number  of  years  to  become  a  portion  of  France; 
that  Prussia  might  be  indemnified  by  the  absorption  of  the  smaller 
German  States,  and  Austria  be  pacified  by  a  slice  of  Turkey  ;  that 
after  this  extension  of  territory  to  the  natural  boundaries  of 
France,  the  Bonaparte  dynasty  would  be  secured,  and  the  Em- 
peror would  enter  into  an  engagement  for  a  complete  system  of 
disarmament ;  that  in  no  other  way  can  this  dynasty  be  enabled 
to  grant  liberal  institutions,  and  without  these  there  can  be  no 
security  for  the  peace  of  Europe ;  that  the  family  of  the  King  of 
Belgium  might  be  compensated  by  a  crown  at  Constantinople, 
etcetera.  I  laughed  repeatedly  at  the  na'ivete  with  which  he  went 
over  this  unprincipled  programme  of  foreign  policy. 

"  June  8.  —  Called  on  Prince  Napoleon,  whg  in  the  course  of 
conversation  described  the  state  of  the  relations  between  the 
governments  of  England  and  France  as  being  very  unsatisfactory; 
'  les  choses  vont  mal!  He  alluded  to  the  danger  of  our  constantly 
arming  in  England,  the  uneasiness  which  it  gave  to  the  people, 
and  the  tendency  which  it  had,  by  the  burden  of  taxation  that  it 
laid  on  them,  to  reconcile  the  English  to  a  war  as  the  only  means 


512  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

of  getting  rid  of  the  evil.  He  complained  of  tlie  vacillating  con- 
duct of  our  Government  in  its  foreign  relations ;  that  it  never 
seemed  to  know  its  own  mind,  which  was  constantly  liable  to  be 
influenced  by  the  state  of  opinion  in  England  and  by  the  majority 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  He  alluded  to  the  question  of  the 
annexation  of  Savoy,  and  remarked  that  our  Government  knew 
that  it  was  inevitable  ;  that  he  had  himself  told  Lord  Cowley  that 
it  was  absolutely  necessary  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  French 
people,  who  required  some  return  for  the  sacrifices  they  had  made 
for  the  independence  of  Italy.  He  spoke  of  our  Tory  party  as 
being  just  as  hostile  to  the  Bonapartes  as  were  their  predecessars 
of  the  time  of  the  first  Empire ;  that  some  of  the  Whig  party 
were  of  a  similar  character.  He  mentioned  Lord  Clarendon  as 
being  a  '  thorough  aristocrat,'  who  had  told  him  that  Bright  and 
myself  were  a  couple  of  fools  who  thought  of  converting  England 
into  a  Republic. 

"June  10.  —  In  consequence  of  a  letter  which  I  received  from 
Prince  Napoleon's  Secretary,  I  called  at  the  Palais  Royal  to-day, 
and  had  a  conversation  with  the  Prince.  He  said  that  the  polit- 
ical relations  of  the  two  countries  were  very  far  from  being  in  a 
satisfactory  state ;  that  he  feared  the  Austrians  were  going  to 
interfere  in  Naples ;  that  he  suspected  they  were  encouraged  by 
the  confidence  they  had  in  the  support  of  our  Court  and  the  Prince 
Consort,  and  that  the  English  Government  would  not  join  France 
in  preventing  it.  The  consequence  might  be  that  the  Piedmon- 
tese  would  interfere  also,  and  a  war  would  be  the  consequence 
which  would  compel  France  to  take  a  part,  or  else  allow  the  Aus- 
trians to  march  to  Turin,  which  they  would  certainly  do  if  they 
had  not  a  French  army  to  oppose  them ;  that  England  might 
avert  this  by  undertaking  with  her  fleet  to  prevent  an  expedition 
from  leaving  Trieste  ;  that  no  bloodshed  could  arise  ;  and  that  the 
least  England  could  do  would  be  to  assist  France  in-  maintaining 
the  principle  of  non-intervention.  He  dreaded  the  complications 
that  would  arise,  and  feared  that  it  might  lead  to  a  rupture 
between  France  and  England. 

"  He  then  said  he  was  about  to  mention  a  delicate  matter,  and 
he  suggested  that  I  ought  to  be  appointed  Ambassador  to  France  ; 
that  this  would  do  more  than  anything  besides  to  cement  the 
good  relations  between  the  two  countries.  As  this  was  said  with 
a  good  deal  of  emphasis,  and  appeared  to  be  the  communication 
he  had  in  view  when  he  sent  for  me,  I  replied,  with  equal  empha- 
sis, '  Impossible  !  you  really  do  not  understand  us  in  England  ! ' 
I  then  explained  exactly  my  position  towards  Lord  Cowley ;  that 
I  had  from  the  first  been  only  an  interloper  on  his  domain  ;  that 
he  had  acted  with  great  magnanimity  in  tolerating  my  intrusion ; 
that  a  man  of  narrow  mind  would  have  resented  it,  and  that  I  felt 


jEt.56.]  the  tariff.  513 

much  indebted  to  him  for  his  tolerance  of  me,  etcetera.  The  Prince 
remarked  that  a  man  of  first-rate  capacity  ought  to  have  resented 
it,  and  either  have  given  up  his  post  altogether  to  me,  or  to  have 
resisted  my  encroachment  on  his  functions.  I  remarked  that  Lord 
Cowley  had  frankly  owned  that  I  had  superior  knowledge  to  him- 
self on  questions  of  a  commercial  or  economical  character,  and 
that,  considering  how  much  they  had  been  my  study,  it  was  not 
derogatory  to  him  to  grant  me  precedence  in  my  own  specialty. 
I  begged  him  to  say  no  more  upon  the  subject. 

"  June  14  —  To-day  a  fete-day  at  Paris,  a  holiday,  a  review, 
flags,  and  illuminations.  The  Emperor  was  well  received  by  the 
populace  on  his  way  from  the  railway  to  the  Tuileries,  and  in 
going  and  coming  from  the  Champs  de  Mars,  where  he  passed 
in  review  upwards  of  50,000  troops  and  national  guards.  The 
occasion  of  these  demonstrations  was  the  celebration  of  the  annex- 
ation of  Savoy  and  Nice  to  France.  An  acquisition  of  more  terri- 
tory is  as  popular  with  the  masses  here  and  in  the  United  States 
(and  would  be  in  England  if  we  had  any  things  but  the  sea  for  our 
frontier),  as  in  ancient  times  it  was  with  despots  and  conquerors. 
The  world  is  governed  by  the  force  of  traditions,  after  they  have 
lost  by  the  change  of  time  and  circumstances  all  relation  to  the 
existing  state  of  human  affairs.  It  is  only  by  the  greater  diffusion 
of  knowledge  in  the  science  of  political  economy,  that  men  will 
cease  to  covet  their  neighbor's  land,  from  the  conviction  that  they 
may  possess  themselves  of  all  that  it  produces  by  a  much  cheaper, 
as  well  as  hones ter,  process  than  by  war  and  conquest.  But  until 
this  time  arrives,  we  do  not  insure  ourselves  against  the  conquer- 
ing propensities  of  despotic  sovereigns  by  transferring  the  supreme 
power  to  the  masses  of  the  people. 

''July  16.  —  Called  on  Lord  Cowley,  and  referring  to  a  sugges- 
tion which  he  and  M.  Eouher  had  made  that  I  should  seek  an 
audience  with  the  Emperor,  in  order  to  strengthen  his  Free  Trade 
tendencies  by  my  conversation  with  him,  I  alluded  to  the  warlike 
preparations  which  had  lately  been  going  on  in  England,  and  con- 
fessed a  repugnance  to  meeting  the  Emperor,  to  whom  I  had 
promised  last  November  that  if  he  entered  on  the  path  of  Free 
Trade  without  reserve,  it  would  be  accepted  by  the  English  people 
as  a  proof  that  he  meditated  a  policy  of  peace.  Yet  in  the  midst 
of  my  labors  upon  the  details  of  the  French  tariff,  in  which  I  had 
every  day  found  greater  proofs  of  tlie  honest  intentions  of  the 
French  Government,  I  observed  a  constant  increase  in  the  military 
preparations  in  England,  which  completely  falsified  my  promises 
to  the  Emperor.  And  now  we  were  daily  threatened  with  a  pro- 
posal for  a  large  outlay  for  fortifications.  I  added  that,  if  the 
latter  scheme  were  announced,  I  should  feel  disinclined  again  to 
see  the  Emperor." 

.        83 


514  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  proposal  was  launched,  and  Cobden 
was  perfectly  prepared  for  it.  The  momentous  subject  of  military 
expenditure  had  in  truth  divided  Cobden's  active  interest  with  the 
Treaty  since  the  beginning  of  the  year.  It  had  been  incessantly 
in  his  mind,  harassing  and  afflicting  him.  If  he  had  been  capable 
,-of  faltering  or  despondency,  it  would  have  unnerved  him  for  the 

^^  difficult  contest  which  he  was  every  day  waging.  The  financial 
arrangements  connected  with  the  Treaty  itself,  had  not  been 
carried  through  Parliament  very  smoothly.  The  episode  of  the 
Paper  duties  in  the  House  of  Lords  was  a  curious  interruption  to 
^serious  business.  Lord  John  Eussell  had  brought  in  a  Eeform 
\y  Bill,  but  the  Prime  Minister  was  notoriously  hostile  to  it,  and  the 
Parliament  was  thoroughly  Palmerstonian  at  heart.  It  was  a 
session  of  confusion  and  cross  purposes.  "  The  House  of  Commons 
is  an  uncertain  sea,"  wrote  one  of  the  most  competent  observers 
to  Cobden,  "  soon  up  with  any  shift  of  the  wind.  It  got  disor- 
ganized by  the  proposed  Eeform  Bill.  Members  were  determined 
not  to  pass  it,  yet  they  dared  not  commit  themselves  to  a  vote 
against  it.    Delay  became  the  watchword,  and  nothing  was  passed 

i>  lest  the  road  should  be  cleared  for  the  Eeform  Bill.  Every  day 
the  House  fell  deeper  into  disorganization,  and  it  seemed  unable 
to  recover  its  balance." 

In  the  spring  and  summer,  the  feeling  in  England  against 
France  had  become  more  and  more  deeply  colored  with  suspicion 

n/  and  alarm.  It  had  approached  what  an  eminent  correspondent 
of  Cobden's  called  a  ''maniacal  alarm."  There  was  in  this 
country,  he  was  told,  "  such  a  resolute  and  one-sided  determina- 
tion to  throw  all  responsibility  on  our  neighbors,  to  presume  the 
worst,  to  construe  everything  in  that  sense,  to  take  credit  for  per- 
fect blamelessness,  as  mere  argument  cannot  surmount."  It  was 
observed  by  one  who  was  himself  a  churchman,  that  among  the 
most  active  promoters  of  the  panic  and  the  necessity  for  immedi- 
ate preparation  were  the  country  clergy.  A  famous  bishop  went 
about  telling  a  story  of  a  Frenchman  who  had  told  him  that  he 
knew  the  Emperor's  mind  to  be  quite  undecided  whether  to  work 
with  England  for  liberty,  or  to  work  against  England  for  abso- 
lutism, beginning  the  work  with  an  invasion.  The  annexation  of 
Savoy  had  kindled  a  fire  in  England  which  a  breath  of  air  might 
blow  into  a  conflagration. 

The  experts  in  foreign  politics  surpassed  themselves  in  the 
elaborateness  of  their  ignorance.  One  peer  who  had  actually  been 
minister  for  foreign  affairs,  gravely  argued  that  if  the  annexation 
of  Savoy  should  take  place,  the  formation  of  a  strong  kingdom  in 
the  north  of  Italy  would  not  be  feasible,  as  that  kingdom  would 
be  open  at  both  extremities,  by  the  Alps  to  France,  and  by  the 
Mincio  to  Austria.      The  newspapers  and  debates  teemed  with 


JET.56.]  THE  TARIFF.  515 

foolish  jargon  of  this*kind.  It  is  like  a  return  to  the  light  of  day 
to  come  upon  that  short  but  most  pithy  speech  (Mar.  2,  1860),  in 
which  the  orator  said  that  he  did  not  want  the  Government  to 
give  the  slightest  countenance  to  the  project  of  annexation,  but, 
he  exclaimed  in  a  memorable  phrase,  "  Perish  Savoy  —  though 
Savoy  will  not  perish  and  will  not  suffer  —  rather  than  the  Gov- 
ernment of  England  should  be  involved  in  enmity  with  the  Gov- 
ernment and  people  of  France  in  a  matter  in  which  we  have  no 
concern  whatever." 

Unfortunately,  Ministers  shared  the  common  panic.  Lord 
Palmerston  had,  until  the  winter  of  1859,  been  the  partisan  of 
the  French  Empire.  He  had  been  so  ready  to  recogcize  it,  that 
his  haste  involved  him  in  a  quarrel  with  his  colleagues  and  the 
Court.  He  was  the  minister  of  that  generation  who,  more  than 
any  other,  had  shown  penetration  and  courage  enough  firmly  to 
withstand  the  Germanism  which  Prince  Albert,  in  natural  ac- 
cordance with  his  education  and  earliest  sympathies,  had  brought 
into  the  palace.  He  had  come  into  power  in  1859,  mainly  because 
the  people  expected  him  to  stand  by  the  Emperor  in  the  emancipa- 
tion of  Italy.  But  in  the  winter  of  1859  he  wrote  a  letter  to  Lord 
John  Russell,  then  the  Foreign  Secretary,  saying  that  though  until 
lately  he  had  strong  confidence  in  the  fair  intentions  of  the 
Emperor  towards  England,  yet  he  now  began  to  suspect  that  the 
intention  of  avenging  Waterloo  had  only  lain  dormant.  "  You 
may  rely  upon  it,"  he  said  to  the  Duke  of  Somerset,  "  that  at  the 
bottom  of  his  heart  there  rankles  a  deep  and  inextinguishable 
desire  to  humble  and  punish  England."  ^  Later  than  this,  at  the 
beginning  of  1860,  it  is  true  that  he  admitted  that  although  the 
Emperor  differed  from  us  about  certain  conditions,  and  the  inter- 
pretation of  certain  conditions  of  the  treaty  of  peace  with  Russia, 
yet  the  points  in  dispute  were  settled  substantially  in  conformity 
with  our  views.  "  There  is  no  ground,"  he  said,  "  for  imputing  to 
him  bad  faith  in  his  conduct  towards  us  as  allies."  Notwith- 
standing this,  the  imputation  of  bad  faith  as  a  future  possibility 
lay  persistently  in  men's  minds.  Lord  Palmerston's  a})prehensions 
were  shared  by  all  the  other  members  of  his  Government,  save 
two  ;  they  were  echoed  in  the  reverberations  of  ten  thousand  lead- 
ing articles;  and  they  were  eagerly  seized  by  a  public  which  seems 
to  be  never  so  happy  as  when  it  is  conjuring  up  dangers  in  whicli 
it  only  half  believes. 

Lord  John  Russell  wrote  a  characteristic  note  to  Cobden  (July 
3),  announcing  a  formal  notification  of  an  article  which  prolonged 
the  labors  of  the  commission  until  November  1.  "  I  hope,"  Loi  d 
John  Russell  proceeds,  "  that  long  before  that  time  arrives,  you 

1  Ashley's  Life  of  Lord  Palmerston, 


516  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

will  have  completed  your  glorious  work,  and  laid  the  foundations 
of  such  an  intertwining  of  relations  between  England  and  France 
that  it  will  not  be  easy  to  separate  them.  It  is  curious  and  amus- 
ing to  me,  who  remember  how  Huskisson  was  run  dovv'n  for  pro- 
posing a  duty  on  silk  goods  so  low  as  30  per  cent,  to  hear  the 
protectionists  abuse  France  for  not  having  a  much  lower  duty. 
My  belief  is  that  15  per  cent  will  protect  their  chief  manufactures. 
In  the  mean  time  I  wish  to  see  this  tight  little  island  made  almost 
impregnable.  It  is  the  sole  seat  of  freedom  in  Europe  which  can 
resist  a  powerful  despot,  and  I  am  for  '  civil  and  religious  liberty 
all  over  the  world.'  " 

There  was  one  powerful  man  in  the  Cabinet  who  did  his  best 
to  stem  the  dangerous  tide.  But  though  in  the  session  of  1860 
Mr.  Gladstone  had  delighted  the  House  and  the  country  by  the 
eloquence  and  the  mastery  of  his  budget  speech  of  February,  and 
by  the  consummate  skill  with  which  he  conducted  his  case  in  the 
debates  that  followed,  yet  he  was  a  long  way  from  the  command- 
ing eminence  at  which  he  arrived  afterwards  when  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's  place  in  the  popular  imagination  became  empty.  If  he  had 
left  Lord  Palmerston's  Government,  the  effect  would  perhaps 
hardly  have  been  greater  than  it  was  when  he  left  the  Govern- 
ment of  Sir  Eobert  Peel  in  1845,  or  that  of  Lord  Palmerston  him- 
self in  1855.  But  the  struggle  in  the  forum  of  his  own  conscience 
was  lono[  and  severe.  He  felt  all  the  weakness  of  the  evidence 
by  which  his  colleagues  justified  the  urgency  of  their  suspicions 
and  the  necessity  for  preparation.  He  revolted  from  the  frank 
irrationality  of  the  common  panicmonger  of  the  street  and  the 
newspaper.  As  a  thrifty  steward  he  groaned  over  the  foolish 
profusion  with  which  he  saw  his  masters  flinging  money  out  of 
the  window.  He  was  in  very  frequent  correspondence  with 
Cobden,  and  Cobden  brought  to  bear  upon  him  all  his  powers  of 
persuasion,  supported  by  a  strong  and  accurate  knowledge  of  all 
that  the  French  Government  had  to  show  in  defence  of  their  own 
innocence.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  Cobden  at  this  time 
subjected  Mr.  Gladstone  to  the  same  intense  intellectual  and 
moral  pressure  to  which  he  had  subjected  Peel  fifteen  years  before. 
But  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  in  the  spirit  of  Lord  Palm- 
erston's  appeal  to  Cobden  himself  to  come  within  the  citadel, 
decided  that  he  could  do  more  good  by  remaining  in  the  Govern- 
ment than  by  leaving  it.  At  the  close  of  the  session,  marked  as 
it  had  been  by  more  dazzling  proofs  than  his  career  had  ever 
furnished  before  of  eloquence  and  intellectual  power,  his  position 
in  Parliament  and  the  country  was  certainly  weaker  than  it  had 
been  six  months  ago. 

Cobden  at  least  was  no  harsh  judge.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
year,  when  writing  to  Mr.  Bright  about  the  Treaty,  he  had  said, 


iEx.  56.]  THE  TARIFF.  517 

"  I  have  told  you  before  that  Gladstone  has  shown  much  heart  in 

this  business He  has  a  strong  aversion  to  the  waste  of 

money  on  our  armaments.  He  has  no  class  feeling  about  the 
Services.  He  has  much  more  of  our  sympathies.  It  is  a  pity 
you   cannot   avoid  hurting   his   convictions   by  such   sallies   as 

[ —  sally  not  now  worth  reproducing] He  has  more  in 

common  with  you  and  me  than  any  other  man  of  his  power  in 
Britain."  And  later  in  the  year,  "  I  agree  with  you  that  Gladstone 
overworks  himself  But  I  suspect  that  he  has  a  conscience  which 
is  at  times  a  troublesome  partner  for  a  cabinet  minister.  I  make 
allowances  for  him,  for  I  have  never  yet  been  able  to  define  to  my 
own  satisfaction  how  far  a  man  with  a  view  to  utility  ought  to 
allow  himself  to  be  merged  in  a  body  of  men  called  a  government, 
or  how  far  he  should  preserve  his  individuality.  If  he  goes  into 
a  government  at  all,  he  must  make  up  his  mind  sometimes  to 
compromise  with  his  own  convictions  for  a  time,  and  at  all  events 
to  be  overborne  by  a  majority  of  his  colleagues." 

Meanwhile,  the  Government  insisted  on  what  they  regarded  as  y' 
the  policy  of  security.  On  July  10,  Cobden  wrote  to  Lord  Palm- 1^ 
erston  a  long  letter,  calmly  and  earnestly  urging  reasons  against  a 
new  scheme  of  defensive  armaments.  He  began  with  a  few  words 
about  the  Treaty,  and  the  date  at  which  they  might  expect  to  end 
their  labors.  The  Treaty,  he  said,  had  been  the  engrossing  task 
of  the  French  Government  for  the  last  eight  months,  and  M. 
Eouher  was  then  foregoing  his  autumn  holidays  in  order  to  com- 
plete the  work.     Cobden  then  goe^  on  :  — 

"  The  systematic  and  resolute  manner  in  w^hich  these  reforms 
have  been  entered  upon  leave  me  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the 
Government  contemplate  a  complete  revolution  in  their  econom- 
ical policy,  which  will  lead  to  an  early  and  large  increase  in  the 
commercial  intercourse  of  the  two  countries,  and  to  an  ameliora- 
tion of  their  social  and  political  relations.  Now  it  is  evident  that 
this  is  a  very  different  prospect  from  that  which  is  generally  en- 
tertained in  England,  where  the  public  mind  has  been  systemati- 
cally misled,  apparently  with  the  design  of  effecting  some  tempo- 
rary and  sinister  object.  The  extraordinary  military  and  warlike 
displays  of  the  last  few  months  in  England  have  also  tended  to 
diminish  the  hopes  which  were  at  first  entertained  in  connection 
with  the  Treaty.  And  this  state  of  discouragement  in  the  public 
mind  has  been  increased  by  the  rumor  that  it  is  the  intention  of 
the  Government  to  propose  a  large  increase  to  our  permanent  de- 
fences. For  as  this  will  be  to  commit  ourselves  to  a  future  and 
somewhat  remote  expenditure,  rather  than  to  provide  against  a 
present  danger,  it  would  be  tantamount  to  a  declaration  on  the 
part  of  the  Government  that  they  have  no  faith  in  any  ultimate 
advantages  from  the  Treaty. 


y 


518  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

"  It  is  on  tliis  point  that  I  am  more  immediately  led  to  address 
you.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  two  questions  are  intimately  con- 
nected; and  I  venture  to  suggest  that  in  fairness  to  the  public 
and  to  Parliament,  as  well  as  to  the  Government  itself,  the  result 
of  our  negotiations  here  should  be  known,  before  the  country  is 
pledged  to  a  further  large  outlay  for  defensive  armaments.  Let  it 
be  understood  that  I  ask  merely  for  the  delay  of  a  few  months ; 
and  I  ask  this  on  the  ground  that  there  is  not  only  a  general  igno- 
rance in  England  as  to  what  the  value  of  the  Treaty  is  likely  to 
be  (for  it  cannot  be  known  even  to  myself  until  the  French  tariff 
is  ready  for  publication),  but  that  a  widespread  suspicion  has  been 
created  that  the  French  Government  is  playing  an  uncandid  part 
in  the  negotiations.  Should  the  Treaty  prove  as  unsatisfactory 
in  its  details  as  is  predicted  by  those  who  are  urging  us  to  an 
increase  of  our  warlike  preparations,  I  shall  have  nothing  to  say 
in  opposition  to  such  a  policy.  But  if,  as  I  expect,  the  French 
Government  should  take  but  a  single  step  from  their  prohibition 
system  to  a  tariff  more  liberal  than  that  of  the  Zollverein  or  the 
United  States,  then  I  think  the  public  mind  in  England  will 
undergo  a  considerable  change  as  to  the  prospects  of  peace  with 
our  great  neighbor ;  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  country  would, 
on  the  very  eve  of  such  a  change,  subject  itself  to  increased 
burdens  in  anticipation  of  a  rupture  with  its  new  customer.  All 
I  desire  is  that  it  should  be  allowed  a  choice  when  in  possession 
of  a  full  knowledge  of  these  circumstances. 

"  There  is  another  reason  why  I  am  induced  to  press  this  sub- 
ject on  your  attention.  It  has  been  evident  to  me  from  the  first 
that  political  considerations  entered  more  largely  than  those  of  an 
economical  kind  into  the  motives  which  induced  the  Emperor  to 
embark  at  this  time  on  the  career  of  Commercial  Reform.  Doubt- 
less he  was  satisfied  that  this  new  policy  would  be  ultimately  ad- 
vantageous to  his  people  ;  but  there  was  no  necessity  for  immediate 
action,  and,  considering  the  great  derangement  of  powerful  inter- 
ests, and  the  large  amount  of  opposition  and  unpopularity  in- 
volved in  the  change,  there  was  nothing  which  invited  one  even  so 
bold  as  himself  to  enter  prematurely  upon  the  task.  His  imme- 
diate objects  were  to  strengthen  the  friendly  relations  of  the 
French  and  English  peoples,  and  to  give  the  world  an  assurance 
that  he  did  not  contemplate  a  career  of  war  and  conquest.  And 
I  did  not  hesitate  to  assure  him  and  his  most  influential  advisers 
that  nothing  would  be  so  cordially  accepted  by  the  English  people, 
as  a  proof  of  his  pacific  intentions  towards  them,  as  the  adoption 
without  reserve  of  a  liberal  commercial  policy. 

"  It  will  be  readily  perceived  that  if,  in  addition  to  all  that  has 
been  done,  the  Government  should  announce  a  great  scheme  of 
defensive  armaments,  and  thus,  before  my  labors  are  completed, 


j:t.56.]  the  tariff.  ^      519 

discredit  by  anticipation  the  political  value  of  the  Treaty,  it  will 
considerably  weaken  my  position  here.  Bear  in  mind  that  tiie 
duties  are  not  yet  finally  settled  on  any  of  the  articles  of  the 
French  tariff,  every  item  of  which  has  to  be  discussed  and  ar- 
ranged by  the  plenipotentiaries,  between  the  extreme  mtes  of  five 
and  twenty  per  cent.  I  do  not  allege  that  the  French  Govern- 
ment will  be  led  by  the  hostile  bearing  of  England  to  adopt  a 
system  of  retaliation  in  the  terms  of  the  Treaty.  Bat  in  the 
important  discussions  on  the  details  of  the  French  tariff'  (and  it 
is  wholly  a  question  of  details),  I  shall  be  placed  in  a  very  disad- 
vantageous position,  and  shall  find  myself  deprived  of  those  argu- 
ments with  which  I  most  successfully  urged  the  adoption  of  the 
Free  Trade  policy,  if  in  the  mean  time  the  present  Government 
commits  itself,  and,  what  is  still  more  important  in  the  sight  of 
France,  if  it  be  allowed  to  commit  the  Free  Trade  and  popular 
party  in  England,  to  a  permanent  attitude  of  hostility  and  mis- 
trust." 

The  answer  to  this  weighty  remonstrance  w^as  forthcoming  a 
week  after  Cobdeu  wrote  it,  and  it  came  through  the  House  of 
Commons.  On  July  23  Lord  Palmerston  made  his  speech.  He 
introduced  a  resolution  for  constructing  works  for  the  defence  of 
certain  royal  dockyards  and  arsenals,  Dover  and  Portland,  and  for 
erecting  a  central  arsenal.  After  speaking  in  general  language  of 
the  horizon  being  darkened  by  clouds  that  betokened  the  possibility 
of  a  tempest,  Lord  Palmerston  proceeded  :  —  "  The  Committee  of 
course  knows  that  in  the  main  I  am  speaking  of  our  immediate 
neighbors  across  the  Channel,  and  there  is  no  use  in  disguising  it. 
It  is  in  no  unfriendly  spirit  that  I  am  speaking.  No  one  has  any 
right  to  take  offence  at  considerations  and  reflections  which  are 
purely  founded  upon  the  principles  of  self-defence."  He  ad- 
mitted that  he  hoped  much  from  the  Treaty,  but  a  treaty  was  a 
frail  defence.  It  would  be  folly  to  rely  on  its  future  effects,  so 
long  as  our  sea  frontier  was  vulnerable.  There  were,  moreover, 
circumstances  in  the  state  of  Europe  leading  us  to  think  that  we 
might  soon  have  to  defend  ourselves  from  attack.  France  had  an 
army  of  600,000 ;  of  these  400,000  were  actually  under  arms, 
and  the  remainder  could  be  called  into  the  ranks  in  a  fortniglit. 
He  did  not  mean  to  say  that  such  a  host  was  raised  for  the  delib- 
erate purpose  of  aggression,  but  still  the  possession  of  power  to 
aggress  frequently  inspires  the  will  to  aggress.  It  was  not  only 
the  army  that  suggested  these  apprehensions.  The  navy,  too, 
had  been  greatly  strengthened,  so  that  our  neighbors  would  have 
the  means  of  transporting  within  a  very  few  hours  a  large  and 
formidable  body  of  troops  to  our  shores. 

Cobden's  plea  in  reply  to  all  this  had  been  given  by  anticipa- 
tion, in  a  postscript  to  the  letter  from  which  I  have  already 


O   ) 


520  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

quoted.  "  I  am  of  course  writing,"  he  had  said,  "  with  the  con- 
viction that  France  has  done  nothing  in  the  way  of  warlike  prepa- 
rations to  justify  our  demonstrations  in  England.  I  have  had 
good  opportunities  of  satisfying  myself  that  the  most  monstrous 
exaggerations  have  been  current  in  England  respecting  the  naval 
strength  of  this  country."  And  this  was  quite  true.  Cobden  had 
taken  as  much  trouble  as  the  responsible  head  of  a  department,  or 
much  more  perhaps,  to  find  out  from  visits  to  Nantes  and  else- 
where, as  well  as  from  constant  conversations  with  the  French 
authorities  and  the  English  naval  attache,  whether  any  real 
change  in  the  proportion  between  the  imperial  navy  and  our  own 
was  taking  place.  He  had  satisfied  himself  that  there  was  no 
evidence  whatever  of  the  alleged  change. 

Lord  Palmerston  seems  to  have  handed  Cobden's  letter  to  Lord' 
John  Eussell,  who  wrote  in  reply :  — 

"July  2,1,  1860. 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Cobden,  —  I  infer  from  your  last  letter  that 
you  think  the  plan  for  fortifications  will  interfere  with  the  ar- 
rangements of  the  Commercial  Treaty.  I  cannot  understand  this. 
The  Emperor  wishes  to  defend  France  ;  he  completes  Cherbourg 
he  adopts  a  peace  army  of  600,000  men.  Not  a  word  of  com 
plaint.  We  add  to  our  navy,  and  propose  to  fortify  the  arsenals 
where  they  are  built  and  repaired.  We  are  accused  immediately 
of  warlike  intentions.  Is  it  to  be  deliberately  said  that  France 
may  be  armed,  but  that  we  should  be  unarmed  ?  Belgium,  Ant- 
werp, Dover,  Portsmouth,  would  in  that  case  soon  fall  into  French 
possession. 

"  I  am  anxious  for  the  completion  of  the  Commercial  Treaty. 
But  I  cannot  consent  to  place  my  country  at  the  mercy  of  France. 
—  I  remain,  yours  very  truly, 

"J.  Russell." 

To  this  Cobden  replied  (Aug.  2,  1860)  with  an  emphatic  state- 
ment, which  he  often  repeated  in  various  forms,  but  which  those 
who  accuse  him  of  wishing  for  peace  at  any  price  carefully  over- 
look :  — 

"  My  dear  Lord  John  Russell,  —  So  far  am  I  from  wishing 
that  'we  should  be  unarmed,'  and  so  little  am  I  disposed  to  'place 
my  country  at  the  mercy  of  France '  (to  quote  the  language  of 
your  note),  that  /  would,  if  necessary,  spend  one  hundred  millions 
sterling  to  maintain  an  irresistible  superiority  over  France  at  sea. 
I  had  satisfied  myself  that  we  were  in  this  position  of  security, 
and  that  there  was  no  foundation  for  the  reports  of  the  sudden  or 
unusual  increase  of  the  French  navy  before  I  addressed  my  letter 


^T.56.]  THE  TARIFF.  521 

to  Lord  Palmerston Eecollect  that  we  had  voted  for  our 

armaments  for  this  year  nearly  30,000,000/.,  before  the  fortifica- 
tion plan  was  proposed.  I  do  not  see  any  limit  to  tlie  future  ex- 
penditure if,  when  a  further  increase  is  objected  to,  every  existing 
provision  is  to  be  ignored,  and  we  are  met  with  the  answer  that, 
unless  the  additional  outlay  be  agreed  to,  we  shall  be  unarmed." 

On  the  same  day  on  which  Cobden  wrote  in  this  way,  Mr. 
Bright,  in  a  speech  of  the  highest  power  and  sagacity,  had  shown 
equally  clearly  that  it  was  not  the  policy  of  security  which  he 
opposed,  but  the  mistaken  means  of  carrying  it  out.  After  illus- 
trating the  almost  daily  advances  that  were  taking  place  in  the 
engines  of  war,  Mr.  Bright  said :  —  "I  am  one  of  those  who  be- 
lieve that  at  a  time  like  this,  when  these  remaijcable  changes  are 
taking  place,  ....  the  course  of  an  honest  and  economic  gov- 
ernment should  be  to  go  on  slowly,  cautiously,  and  inquiringly, 
and  not  commit  themselves  to  a  vast  expenditure  which  twelve 
months'  experience  may  show  to  be  of  no  value  at  all." 

If  it  was  answered  that  the  occasion  was  urgent,  then  Cobden's 
rejoinder  by  anticipation  in  his  letter  to  Lord  Palmerston  was 
perfectly  good,  namely,  that  the  expenditure  on  fortifications  was 
remote  and  spread  over  a  number  of  years,  and  therefore  couljd 
hardly  be  designed  to  meet  an  immediate  and  pressing  danger. 
Lord  Palmerston's  speech  we  now  see,  at  the  distance  of  a  score 
of  years,  to  have  been  a  dangerous  provocation  to  Napoleon  in- 
stantly to  make  the  very  descent  for  which  we  declared  ourselves 
to  be  unprepared.  If  Napoleon  had  really  cherished  the  bitter 
design  of  avenging  Waterloo,  of  which  Lord  Palmerston  suspected 
him,  he  would  not  have  waited  for  the  completion  of  the  fortifica- 
tions. The  effect  in  Paris  was  what  Cobden  had  foreseen,  as  the 
entries  in  his  journals  testify. 

"  July  25.  —  Called  on  Lord  Cowley,  and  in  the  course  of  con- 
versation expressed  my  disapproval  of  Lord  Palmerston's  project 
for  fortifying  the  British  coasts  at  the  expense  of  ten  or  twelve 
millions  sterling.  I  also  censured  the  tone  of  his  speech  in  al- 
luding to  France  as  the  probable  aggressor  upon  England.  The 
scheme  and  the  speech  were  a  mockery  and  insult  to  me,  whilst 
engaged  in  framing  the  Treaty  of  Commerce  ;  and  I  frankly 
avowed  that,  if  I  had  not  my  heart  in  the  business  in  which  I  was 
engaged  here,  I  would  return  home  and  do  the  utmost  in  my 
power  to  destroy  the  Ministry,  and  thus  prevent  it  from  commit- 
ting the  popular  party  to  the  policy  of  the  present  Government. 
He  admitted  that  Lord  Palmerston's  speech  was  injudicious  in 
having  alluded  so  exclusively  to  the  dang^  to  be  apprehended 
from  France. 

"July  26. — Lord  Palmerston's  speech  in  the  House  of  Com- 


522  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [I860. 

mons  has  prodiiced  considerable  emotion  in  the  political  circles  of 
Paris.  The  proposal  to  spend  nine  millions  on  fortifications  has 
occasioned  less  offence  than  the  speech  which  accompanied  it, 
wherein  he  directed  the  apprehensions  of  the  country  towards 
France  exclusively  as  the  source  of  our  danger  of  attack  and  inva- 
sion. People  speak  of  it  as  an  indication  that  our  Court  and  aris- 
tocracy are  inclined  to  renew  the  policy  of  1792,  by  forming 
another  coalition  in  opposition  to  France.  They  say  that  the  in- 
spiration of  our  policy  in  arming  and  fortifying  comes  from  Ber- 
lin and  Brussels  through  the  British  Court. 

"  July  28.  —  Dined  with  Mr.  P and  a  party  at  the  restau- 
rant of  Philippe.  M.  Chevalier,  one  of  the  company,  told  me  a 
curious  story  about  a  recent  interview  between  M.  Thouvenel,  the 
French  Foreign  Minister,  and  Lord  Cowley.  The  latter,  after  con- 
fessing some  perplexity  in  making  the  communication,  informed 
the  former  that  Lord  Palmerston  had  obtained  from  some  person 
in  the  secret  a  copy  of  the  plan  of  the  Emperor  for  seizing  on 
London  !  He  had  also  procured  from  a  similar  source  the  infor- 
mation that  the  Emperor  had  entered  into  an  arrangement  with 
Cavour,  by  which  France  was  to  secure  a  further  aggrandizement 
of  territory.  Both  stories  were  received  as  laughably  untrue. 
M.  Chevalier  says  there  are  chevcdiers  dHndustrie  who  maimfacture 
these  marvellous  stories,  and  sell  them  to  newspapers  or  to  credu- 
lous statesmen.  Both  the  above  canards  had,  he  said,  been  sold  to 
Lord  Palmerston  and  by  him  been  transferred  to  his  colleagues  of 
the  Cabinet. 

"August  2.  —  In  a  conversation  with  M.  Rouher,  the  Minister 
of  Commerce,  he  related  to  me  the  incident,  mentioned  previously 
by  M.  Chevalier,  of  Lord  Cowley  having  called  on  M.  Thouvenel, 
the  Foreign  Minister,  to  ask  for  an  explanation  respecting  a  secret 
treaty  alleged  to  have  been  entered  into  by  France  and  Sardinia, 
by  which  the  latter  was  to  be  allowed  to  annex  the  wdiole  of  the 
Italian  States  on  the  condition  of  ceding  to  the  French  Emperor 
another  slice  of  territory.  He  described  in  a  graphic  way  the  em- 
barrassment of  the  British  envoy  in  disclosing  the  delicate  object 
of  his  visit;  how,  after  many  shrugs  and  wry  faces,  and  sundry 
exhortations  from  the  French  Minister,  he  at  last  revealed  the 
secret ;  how  this  w^as  followed  by  an  earnest  disavowal,  on  the 
personal  honor  of  M.  Thouvenel,  upon  which,  after  many  fresh 
protestations  of  regret  and  perplexity,  Lord  Cowley  produced  from 
his  pocket  a  copy  of  the  Treaty,  which  he  handed  to  the  French 
Minister,  who  thereupon  laughed  heartily,  and  assured  him  that 
it  was  not  worth  the  paper  on  which  it  was  written,  and  that  in 
fact  the  English  Government  had  been  the  victim  of  a  very 
clumsy  hoax. 

"M.   Rouher  spoke  in  indignant  terms  of  the  speech  lately 


J5T.56.]  THE  TARIFF.  523 

delivered  by  Lord  Palmerston  in  the  House  of  Commons  when 
introducing  the  measure  for  fortifying  the  naval  arsenals,  in  which 
he  founded  his  scheme  entirely  upon  the  danger  to  be  apprehended 
from  France.  He  characterized  the  policy  of  our  Cabinet  as  a 
pitiful  truckling  to  the  popular  passions  of  the  moment,  for  the 
sole  object  of  securing  a  majority  in  Parliament,  in  disregard  of 
the  interests  of  commerce  and  civilization  and  the  higher  duties 
of  statesmanship.  He  spoke  at  some  length  and  with  much  elo- 
quence on  this  subject,  and  remarked  that  he  regretted  there  was 
not  a  tribune  in  France  from  which  he  could  speak  for  half  an 
hour  in  answer  to  Lord  Palmerston.  He  said  that  this  speech  had 
increased  the  difficulties  of  the  French  Government  iu  carrying 
out  liberally  the  terms  of  the  Treaty,  for  it  deprived  them  of  the 
argument  that  it  would  ameliorate  the  moral  and  political  rela- 
tions of  the  two  countries.  He  denied  the  truth  of  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's  assertion  that  the  French  navy  had  been  unduly  increased. 
Alluding  to  the  letter  which  the  Emperor  had  written  to  Count 
Persigny  in  consequence  of  Lord  Palmerston's  speech,  he  remarked 
that  it  had  wounded  the  susceptibilities  of  the  French  people, 
who  dislike  to  see  their  sovereign  treat  with  'so  much  considera- 
tion, and  so  much  on  the  footing  of  equality,  a  statesman  who 
had  recently  offered  so  many  insults  to  France.  I  hear  from  many 
other  quarters  that  the  Emperor's  letter  has  hurt  the  self-love  of 
all  classes  of  the  French  people.  It  is  a  significant  fact  that  it 
has  not  beeil  published  in  the  Monitetcr. 

"August  27.  —  Called  on  M.  Rouher  in  the  morning  and  had 
some  conversation  on  the  subject  of  our  proposed  arrangements 
for  completing  the  French  tariff.  He  mentioned  that  he  had  been 
speaking  to  Lord  Clarendon  upon  the  language  used  by  Lord  Palm- 
erston in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  had  censured  the  levity  with 
which  he  had  for  mere  momentary  objects  in  the  House  embit- 
tered the  relations  of  the  two  countries  and  endangered  their  peace. 
He  observed  that  the  conduct  of  Lord  Palmerston  had  added  im- 
mensely to  the  difficulties  of  the  French  Government  in  carrying 
out  the  details  of  the  Treaty,  for  it  Iiad  cut  from  under  their  feet 
the  political  grounds  on  which  they  had  justified  themselves  to 
the  influential  members  of  the  protectionist  party,  who  now 
taunted  him  with  having  failed  to  secure  the  English  alliance  by 
the  Free-Trade  concessions.  He  said  that  the  Emperor's  letter  to 
M.  Persigny  was  not  intended  for  publication,  but  that  the  Em- 
peror was  importuned  by  the  latter  to  allow  it  to  be  given  to  the 
world. 

"August  31.  —  Called  on  Prince  Napoleon,  who  informed  me 
he  was  going  shortly  on  a  visit  to  England,  where  he  would  study 
our  agriculture,  and  travel  into  Scotland  as  far  as  Inverness.  I 
hoped  he  would  visit  Manchester  and  Liverpool,  and  make   a 


524  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

speech  on  the  Commercial  Treaty.  He  complained  of  the  lan- 
guage of  Lord  Palmerston  in  the  House  towards  France,  and  inti- 
mated that  it  would  be  well  for  the  peace  of  the  world  that  he 
were  removed  from  the  political  stage,  if  not  from  the  stage  of  life. 
He  said  the  great  danger  to  be  dreaded  from  these  attacks  upon 
France,  made  by  our  leading  statesmen  from  political  motives, 
was  lest  the  Germans,  and  particularly  Austria,  should  infer  that 
they  would  be  supported  in  a  war  with  France  by  England,  and 
thus  be  encouraged  to  make  a  rupture  with  this  country.  He 
attributed  our  present  hostile  attitude  towards  France  to  the 
influence  exercised  at  our  Court  by  the  royal  families  of  Prussia, 
Belgium,  etc.  The  English  Court,  he  said,  in  the  present  equally 
balanced  state  of  parties,  exercised  a  great  sway  over  the  rival 
aristocratic  candidates  for  office. 

"  September  4.  —  Lord  Granville  called,  and  I  took  the  opportu- 
nity of  commenting  on  the  conduct  of  the  Government  during  the 
late  session  of  Parliament,  particularly  with  regard  to  Lord  Palm- 
erston's  gratuitous  attacks  on  France  in  his  speech  on  proposing 
the  project  of  fortifications.  I  showed  the  enormous  superiority 
which  we  already  possessed  at  sea  before  the  expenditure  on  coast 
defences  was  proposed,  that  we  had  84,000  men  and  boys  voted 
for  our  navy  against  30,000  in  France ;  that  our  expenditure  was 
15,000,000/.  and  theirs  6,000,000/. 

"  September  5.  —  M.  de  Persigny  (French  Ambassador  to  Lon- 
don) dined  with  me,  and  we  had  a  long  conversation  upon  the 
politics  of  the  two  countries.  I  referred  to  the  report  that  the 
Emperor  had  ordered  eight  more  fregates  blindees  to  be  built, 
which  he  seemed  to  admit  to  be  true,  and  I  expressed  an  opinion 
that  it  would  only  lead  to  our  building  double  as  many  iron-cased 
line-of-battle  ships  in  England.  I  added  that  this  could  only  lead 
to  an  indefinite  expense  on  both  sides,  and  that  unless  an  end 
could  be  put  to  this  insane  rivalry  it  would  lead  to  a  war.  I  said 
i  blamed  the  French  Government  for  taking  the  initiative  in  these 
matters,  which  he  did  not  appear  able  to  meet.  He  agreed  that 
it  would  be  necessary  to  endeavor  to  bring  the  two  governments 
to  an  understanding  by  which  some  limit  could  be  put  to  this 
warlike  rivalry.  He  expressed  an  opinion  that  it  would  be  left 
to  a  Tory  Government  to  carry  out  this  policy.  He  complained 
of  the  levity  with  which  Lord  Palmerston  trifled  with  the  peace 
of  the  two  countries ;  and  he  spoke  of  the  difficulties  which  he 
encountered  in  his  relations  with  our  Government,  owing  to  the 
want  of  a  consistent  and  reliable  policy  on  the  part  of  the  Min- 
istry, who  altered  their  course  to  suit  the  caprice  of  the  House  of 
Commons  from  day  to  day." 

'         Meanwhile,  the  fabric  of  a  tariff  was  slowly  rising  out  of  space. 

/    In  September,  a  storm  ruffled  the  surface  of  Cobden's  diplomacy. 


JlT.  56.]  THE  TARIFF.  525 

The  new  rates  of  duty  on  iron  and  other  metal  wares  in  the/ 
French  tariff  were  to  come  into  operation  on  the  1st  of  October. 
Cobden  had  been  holding  daily  conferences  with  M.  Rouher  for 
settling  the  necessary  alterations  in  the  tariff,  and  was  at  length 
(Sept.  10)  able  to  report  that  the  work  was  nearly  completed.! 
Lord  Cowley  expressed  a  wish  to  take  instructions  from  home 
before  he  signed  the  convention.  In  vain  Cobden  pointed  out  to 
him  the  impossibility  of  revising  the  French  tariff  in  London 
without  the  assistance  of  the  French  Ministers,  and  the  Ministers 
would  certainly  not  go  over  the  matter  again.  At  that  moment, 
moreover,  the  heads  of  departments  were  absent  from  London,  ^ 
and  a  most  embarrassing  and  dangerous  delay  would  necessarily 
take  place  in  consequence.  Lord  Cowley  did  not  feel  that  he 
could  give  way,  and  a  copy  of  the  tariff  was  sent  home.  When 
the  tariff  reached  London,  the  Foreign  Office  hesitated  to  accept 
the  figures  without  reference  in  detail  to  the  Treasury,  the  Cus- 
toms, and  the  Board  of  Trade.  It  was  true  that  both  the  Board 
of  Trade  and  the  Customs  had  sent  their  representatives  to  super- 
vise the  proceedings  in  Paris.  It  was  clearly  explained  to  the 
Foreign  Office  how  impossible  it  would  be  to  revise  a  French 
tariff  in  London.  The  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade  was  away 
in  his  yacht,  and  nobody  knew  where  to  find  him.  In  the  mean 
while  his  department  had  written  to  the  Foreign  "Office,  deprecat- 
ing as  useless,  if  not  mischievous,  any  attempt  to  revise  the  French  \/ 
tariff  in  London,  and  advising  that  it  should  be  accepted  as  it  left 
the  hands  of  the  Commission  in  Paris.  "  The  Board  of  Trade," 
said  one  of  its  Presidents,  "  is  merely  an  opinion-giving  depart- 
ment, and  our  advice  is  often  disregarded,  especially  ivhen  it  is 
riglfitr  It  was  disregarded  now,  and  the  tariff  remained  hung  up 
in  the  most  stubborn  of  all  the  Circumlocution  offices.  The  first 
day  of  October  was  rapidly  approaching.  The  French  Ministers 
were  astonished  at  a  delay  which  was  unintelligible.  "I  am 
amazed,"  M.  Rouher  said  to  Cobden,  "  that  a  country  like  Eng-  ^ 
land  should  allow  a  great  commercial  question  to  be  treated  in 
this  contemptuous  way.  Had  it  been  Caraccas  or  Guayaquil  or 
Turkey,  I  should  have  understood  it.  But  here  is  a  Treaty  of 
Commerce  between  England  and  a  nation  of  thirty-six  millions 
of  people  within  two  hours  of  its  shores  —  probably  the  greatest 
event  in  her  commercial  annals  —  and  it  does  not  seem  to  create 
sufficient  interest  in  the  Government  to  induce  the  President  of 
the  Board  of  Trade  to  remain  for  a  few  days  at  his  post,  or  even 
to  leave  his  address  where  a  despatch  will  find  him."  He  added 
that  he  had  some  reason  to  believe  that  perhaps  there  would  be 
no  great  regret  in  some  quarters,  if  Cobden  did  not  meet  with  too 
great  success  in  his  negotiations.  Success  might  procure  for  him 
a  degree  of  influence  that  might,  it  was  feared,  possibly  be  used 
against  the  Government. 


\y 


/ 


J 


526  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

Cobden  suggested  to  M.  Eouher  that  if  they  could  only  sign 
such  a  portion  of  the  tariff  as  was  to  come  into  operation  on  the 
1st  of  October,  they  might  at  least  publish  the  whole  tariff,  on 
the  ground  that  the  first  portion  was  likely  to  be  the  least  satis- 
factory to  the  English  manufacturers,  and  it  was  unadvisable 
therefore  to  expose  it  to  hostile  criticism  for  a  week  or  ten  days 
before  the  rest  could  be  published.  When  this  was  explained  at  the 
next  meeting  or  the  plenipotentiaries,  a  rather  disagreeable  scene 
took  place.  "Lord  Cowley,"  says  Cobden,  "jumped  up  from  his 
chair,  and,  seizing  his  hat,  declared  with  considerable  excitement 
that  he  would  leave  the  room,  throw  up  all  responsibility,  and 
leave  the  matter  in  my  hands ;  that  I  had  undertaken  to  act  with- 
out his  consent,  and  in  opposition  to  his  instructions,  etcetera. 
In  vain  M.  Eouher  explained  that  he  had  acted  on  my  personal 
assurance,  and  that  what  I  had  said  did  not  bind  me  as  a  plenipo- 
tentiary, and  still  less  Lord  Cowley.  The  whole  scene  ended  in 
,Lord  Cowley  refusing  to  sign  the  whole  of  the  tariff  on  metals, 
and  so  we  appended  our  signatures  only  to  that  portion  which 
comes  into  operation  on  October  1."  This,  it  should  be  said  liere, 
was  the  only  occasion  when  any  difference  arose  between  Cobden 
and  the  English  ambassador.  "  Do  not  say  a  word,"  he  had  writ- 
ten to  Mr.  Bright  a  few  weeks  before,  "  to  disparage  Lord  Cowley. 
He  has  acted  a  very  manly  part,  and  has  done  his  best  to  help 
me." 

The  continued  delay  as  to  the  text  of  the  Convention  chafed 
Cobden  almost  beyond  endurance.  "  When  the  post  of  plenipo- 
tentiary was  conferred  on  me,  without  my  solicitation,"  he  writes 
in  his  diary,  "  I  little  thought  that  it  would  subject  me  to  feelings 
of  humiliation.  Yet  this  has  been  the  case  during  the  last  week  ; 
for  I  find  that  I  am  paraded  at  meetings  of  the  plenipotentiaries 
with  my  hands  tied,  without  the  power  of  solving  the  merest 
question  of  detail.  When  I  filled  the  post  of  commercial  traveller 
at  the  age  of  twenty,  I  was  intrusted  with  more  discretionary 
power  than  is  now  shared  by  Lord  Cowley  and  myself  while  fill- 
ing the  office  of  H.  M.'s  plenipotentiaries.  The  name  might 
more  appropriately  be  changed  to  that  of  nullipotentiary.  The 
points  on  which  this  delay  is  created  by  the  Foreign  Ofhce  are 
so  trivial  and  unimportant  as  almost  to  defy  comprehension.  It 
fairly  raises  the  suspicion  whether  there  be  not  an  occult  influ- 
ence at  work  at  home,  unfavorable  to  my  success,  and  which 
would  not  grieve  even  if  I  were  to  fail  in  my  Treaty  altogether, 
or  to  abandon  the  undertaking  in  weariness  and  disgust." 

The  suspicion  that  his  labors  were  not  popular  with  the  Cabi- 
net was  undoubtedly  well  founded,  but  in  this  particular  instance 
Cobden  was  probably  only  suffering  from  that  jealous  and  surly 
spirit  which  the  Foreign  Office  thinks  business-like.    Lord  Cowley 


^T.  56.]  THE  TARIFF.  527 

wrote  to  him  good-naturedly :  — "  You  will  not  bless  the  day  when 
you  made  acquaintance  with  diplomacy.  But  as  you  have  now  ^ 
got  entangled  in  our  meshes,  you  must  take  us  as  we  are,  for 
better,  for  worse."  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  Lord  Palmerston, 
who  knew  little  or  nothing  of  the  merits  of  the  matter,  thought 
in  a  general  way  that  official  form  or  the  national  dignity  required 
that  a  certain  number  of  objections  should  be  raised.  Mr.  Milner 
Gibson  was  compelled  to  hurry  down  to  Broadlands,  to  prove  by 
word  of  mouth  to  the  Prime  Minister  that  they  were  wasting  time 
in  mere  straw-splitting.  The  Foreign  Office  held  out  upon  the 
following  point.  If  an  importer  were  proved  to  have  made  a 
declaration  of  value  to  the  amount  of  ten  per  c^nt  under  the  real 
value,  he  should  be  liable  to  penalties.  No,  our  Government  said, 
ten  per  cent  is  not  margin  enough  :  the  importer  must  not  be  pun- 
ished unless  his  under-declaration  should  amount  to  fifteen  per 
cent  on  the  real  value.  In  fact,  this  was  only  making  tilings  a 
little  easier  for  dishonest  men.  M.  Rouher  said  that  he  would 
accept  the  alteration  if  it  were  pressed,  but  that  it  would  disin- 
cline him  for  the  adoption  of  further  ad  valorem  duties.  This 
was  explained  to  Lord  Cowley,  and  after  an  interchange  of  tele- 
grams, the  alteration  was  abandoned. 

It  was  October  12  before  the  first  supplementary  convention 
w^as  signed,  fixing  the  duty  on  work  in  metals.  The  second  sup- 
plementary convention,  embracing  the  remainder  of  the  French 
tariff,  was  signed  on  November  16.  On  this  day  the  labors  of  ^ 
the  Treaty  came  to  an  end.  Cobden  summed  up  his  grievances  j 
in  the  following  passage  in  his  journal  referring  immediately  to 
the  earlier  of  the  two  conventions,  but  substantially  conveying 
his  impressions  of  the  performance  as  a  whole  :  — 

"  This  convention  was  ready  for  signature,  so  far  as  the  negotia-j 
tion  here  was  concerned,  on  the  18th  September,  and  the  delay] 
which  has  taken  place  is  attributable  to  our  Foreign  Office,  tol 
their  habitual  procrastination,  the  desire  to  meddle,  and  I  fear\ 
also  to  the  willingness  on  the  part  of  some  of  the  officials  in  that\ 
department  to  find  fault  with  my  performance.     My  position  is  I 
that  of  a  poacher,  and  their  feeling  towards  me  is  akin  to  that  of  \ 
gamekeepers  towards  a  trespasser  in  quest  of  game.     I  am  afraid,  | 
too,  that  the  majority  of  the  Cabinet  is  not  very  eager  for  my  1 
complete  success  here.     The  tone  of  our  Court  is  very  hostile  to  j 
the  French  Emperor,  and  in  the  present  nearly  balanced  state  of  j 
political  parties  the  Court  has  great  influence.     There  is  an  in-  - 
stinctive  feeling  on  the  part  of  our  aristocratic  politicians  that 
if  the  Treaty  should  prove  successful,  and  result  in  a  largely  in- 
creased trade  between  France  and  England,  it  would  produce  a 
state  of  feeling  which  might  lead  to  a  mutual  limitation  of  arma- 
ments, and  thus  cut  down  the  expenditure  for  our  warlike  services 


528  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1860. 

on  which  our  aristocratic  system  flourishes.  The  first  attempt  at 
delaying  the  Treaty,  and  perhaps  detracting  from  my  merit  in  its 
preparation,  was  the  proposal  to  revise  again  the  tariff  in  Eng- 
land ;  and  when  I  had  proved  the  absurdity  and  impossibility  of 
doing  this,  and  had  induced  them  to  leave  it  precisely  as  I  had 
sent  it  home,  then  the  Foreign  Office  officials  fell  upon  the  text  of 
the  convention,  and  by  insisting  on  certain  alterations  produced 
a  further  delay.  The  attempt  to  substitute  fifteen  for  ten  per 
cent  for  the  amount  of  undervaluation  which  should  subject  im- 
porters to  a  fine,  and  other  attempted  changes  in  this  part  of  the 
convention,  whilst  they  caused  a  further  postponement,  w^ere  cal- 
culated to  w^eaken  my  influence  with  the  French  Minister  by  re- 
voking an  engagement  to  w^hich  I  had  become  a  party.  These 
points  have  at  last  been  most  unwillingly  yielded,  after  occasion- 
ing me  great  trouble  and  annoyance.  The  clause  which  I  had 
agreed  to  for  regulating  the  duty  on  sugar  was  rejected,  though 
it  was  proposed  merely  for  the  convenience  of  the  French  Minis- 
ter in  controlling  his  own  producers,  and  could  not  possibly  be 
prejudicial  to  our  interests.  The  clause  also  respecting  the  Visa 
of  French  Consuls  in  England  was  altered  at  the  Foreign  Office, 
with  no  other  practical  result  than  to  give  needless  offence  to  the 
French  negotiators,  and  M.  Herbet,  one  of  the  Commissioners, 
pronounced  it  to  be  very  'hhssant.^  Altogether  the  spirit  which 
animates  the  officials  at  home  is  very  hostile  and  mistrustful  to 
the  French  Government ;  and  it  is  evident  that,  whilst  this  spirit 
lasts,  it  is  quite  impossible  that  any  negotiation  between  the  two 
Governments,  with  a  view  to  limit  their  respective  armaments, 
can  be  entered  on  with  any  chance  of  success." 

In  November  Mr.  Bright  came  to  Paris  to  pay  his  friend  a  short 
visit.  "  I  cannot  allow  you  to  leave  Paris,"  he  had  written,  "  to 
go  south  to  Algiers,  or  Egypt,  or  even  to  Cannes  or  Nice,  without 
trying  to  have  an  evening  or  two  with  you."  The  day  after  his 
arrival  they  called  on  Prince  Napoleon,  who  told  them  that  the 
English  Government  ought  to  invite  the  Emperor  to  bring  away 
his  troops  from  Eome.  According  to  Prince  Napoleon,  England 
could  not  do  the  French  Government  a  greater  service.  On  the 
following  day  they  saw  the  Emperor  himself 

"  Nov.  27.  —  Mr.  Bright  and  I  had  an  audience  of  the  Emperor. 
He  asked  if  I  was  satisfied  with  the  Treaty,  and  I  replied  that, 
with  the  exception  of  the  article  of  iron,  I  did  not  complain.  I 
told  him  that  if  iron  had  been  taken  last  instead  of  the  first  item 
in  the  tariff,  it  would  have  been  dealt  with  more  boldly.  He 
intimated  that  greater  reductions  would  follow.  He  expressed  to 
Mr.  Bright  his  high  sense  of  the  course  he  had  taken  in  always 
trying  to  preserve  a  good  understanding  between  the  two  coun- 
tries.    He  again  complained  (as  he  had  done  before  to  me)  that 


>Et.  56.]  THE  TARIFF.  529 

his  intentions  towards  England  were  misrepresented  by  certain 
people.  He  laughed  at  the  reports  that  he  was  preparing  some 
boats  for  the  invasion  of  England,  when  it  turned  out  they  were 
intended  to  carry  coals  from  the  interior  to  Brest.  He  alluded  to 
the  conduct  of  an  English  lady,  and  said  he  had  a  letter  written 

by  her  to  M ,  saying,  *  Will  nobody  be  found  to  shoot  that 

rascal  ? '  meaning  the  Eiriperor.  He  alluded  to  the  affairs  of  Italy, 
and  seemed  to  be  especially  puzzled  what  to  do  with  the  Pope. 

In  reference  to  Venetia,  he  said  he  had  suggested  to  Mr. that 

a  pamphlet  should  be  written  recommending  that  Austria  should 
sell  the  independence  of  that  Italian  province  for  a  sum  of  money. 
In  the  course  of  our  conversation  he  mentioned  as  a  secret  that 
he  had  bought  the  Chronicle,  London  newspaper,  and  he  offered 
to  put  it  into  Bright's  and  my  hands,  to  be  under  our  control.^  I 
parried  this  proposal  by  saying  that  such  arrangements  could  never 
be  kept  secret,  and  I  rather  surprised  him  by  saying  that  I  had 
heard  some  months  since  of  his  having  bought  that  newspaper." 

This  interview  had  been  sought  by  the  Emperor's  visitors  from 
no  idle  motives.  Most  of  the  hour  was  taken  up  with  the  subject 
of  passports.  The  two  Englishmen  had  come  there  to  bring 
arguments  to  bear  which  should  induce  the  Emperor  to  abolish 
this  troublesome  restraint  on  the  intercourse  of  nations.  It 
naturally  followed  as  a  part  of  the  policy  on  which  France  had 
entered  in  the  Treaty  ;  and  the  Emperor  felt  that  the  persuasion 
of  his  visitors  could  not  be  logically  resisted.  This  proved  to  be 
another  instance  of  the  value  of  the  informal  diplomacy  of  rea- 
sonable and  enlightened  men.  Mr.  Bright  was  struck  by  the  great 
confidence  which  Napoleon  seemed  to  feel  in  Cobden,  and  by  the 
degree  in  which  his  mind  was  open  to  argument.  After  Mr.  Bright 
returned  to  England,  Cobden  persevered  with  the  good  work. 

"  December  6.  —  Dined  at  M.  Chevalier's.  Met  Count  de  Per- 
signy,  who  has  just  returned  from  the  Embassy  to  England  and 
entered  on  the  duties  of  Home  Minister.  We  spoke  upon  the 
subject  of  passports.  I  mentioned  to  him  the  conversation  I  had 
had  with  the  Emperor  when  Mr.  Bright  and  I  had  an  audience 
with  him.  He  (Count  P.)  seemed  inclined  to  put  an  end  to  the 
present  system  of  passports  between  France  and  England,  and  to 
substitute  a  mere  visiting  card,  which  should  receive  the  stamp 
from  the  consular  agent  at  the  port  of  embarkation,  and  which 
should  serve  as  a  ticket  of  admission  into  France.  Although  ad- 
mitting that  this  would  be  an  improvement  on  the  present  system, 
I  advised  him  to  make  a  clean  sweep  of  all  travelling  permits,  and 
to  content  himself  with  a  police  surveillance  when  a  person  be- 
came settled  ;    I  said  that  a  hillet  de  sejour  might  be  required  to 

^  Mr.  Bright  does  not  recollect  that  the  Emperor  said  he  had  bought  the  Chr(m- 
icle,  but  that  he  had  secured  an  influence  in  it  or  over  it. 

84 


530  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

be  taken  out  by  all  Englisbmen  who  took  up  their  abode  in  any 
part  of  France." 

Two  days  later  Cobden  wrote  a  letter  to  Persigny,  now  become 
Minister  of  the  Interior,  urging  many  reasons  why  he  ought  to 
abolish  passports  without  substituting  any  other  precaution  in 
their  place.  The  abolition  of  passports  with  regard  to  British 
subjects  was  passed  a  week  later  (December  16).  Some  of  the 
English  newspapers  chose  to  say  that  the  change  had  been  made 
at  the  intercession  of  the  Empress,  who  was  delighted  at  the 
manner  in  which  she  had  been  treated  in  England.  "  The  pass- 
port reform,"  Cobden  wrote  to  Mr.  Bright,  "  is  capital.  .  To-day, 
Chevalier  writes  to  say  that  the  French  postmaster  is  prepared 
to  increase  the  weight  of  letters,  and  I  am  writing  by  this  post 
to  Rowland  Hill  to  say  that  he  has  only  to  make  the  pro- 
posal. Thus  in  the  same  year  we  have  the  tariff,  abolition  of 
passports,  and  a  postal  facility.  The  question  arises  naturally, 
why  should  not  our  Foreign  Office  accomplish  some  good  of  this 
kind  ?  I  do  not  want  to  throw  any  blame  on  Lord  Cowley,  but 
can  it  be  doubted  that  much  more  of  the  same  kind  might  be  done 
if  there  was  a  will  ? " 

This  letter  to  Persigny  was  Cobden's  last  act  before  leaving 
Paris.  On  the  9th  of  December,  accompanied  by  his  wife  and 
eldest  daughter,  he  left  Paris  on  his  way  to  Algiers.  He  had 
never  quite  shaken  off  the  eff'ects  of  the  illness  which  had  attacked 
him  in  the  previous  winter.  He  used  to  say  of  himself  that  he 
was  wholly  the  creature  of  atmosphere  and  temperature.  His 
throat  was  constantly  troublesome,  and  when  cold  and  damp 
weather  came,  his  hoarseness  returned  with  growing  severity.  He 
s/  had  a  nervous  dread  of  the  London  fog,  from  which  he  had  suf- 
fered the  autumn  before,  and  from  which  he  was  suff'ering  even 
■  now,  and  he  had  an  irresistible  craving  for  the  sunshine  of  the 
warm  south.  His  doctor  warned  him  that  a  single  speech  to  a 
large  audience  might  destroy  his  voice  forever ;  and  he  was  beset 
with  invitations  to  public  meetings  and  congratulatory  banquets. 
We  cannot  wonder  at  his  eagerness  for  rest.  "  When  I  began 
last  winter,"  lie  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  as  a  volunteer  in  the  corps  of 
diplomacy,  I  little  dreamed  what  a  year's  work  I  was  preparing 
for  myself.  Certainly  mine  has  not  been  an  idle  life,  but  I  never 
had  so  tough  a  task  in  hand  as  that  which  I  have  just  finished. 
And  nuich  as  my  heart  was  in  the  work,  I  feel  intensely  satisfied 
that  it  is  at  an  end.  Nor  do  I  think,  if  I  must  confess  so  much, 
that  I  could  again  go  through  the  ordeal.  It  would  not  be  easy 
to  explain  to  you  what  it  has  been,  but  if  I  should  again  have  the 
pleasure  of  toasting  my  knees  by  your  fire,  I  could  explain  it  in  a 


few  sittings.' 


1  To  William  Har greaves,     Nov.  16,  1860. 


^T.  56.]  THE  TARIFF.  531 

He  remained  in  Algiers  until  the  following  May.  While  he 
was  absent,  his  friends  began  to  talk  about  some  public  recognition 
of  his  services  by  the  Government.  The  Tariff  bad  been  received 
with  almost  universal  approval  in  the  various  centres  of  English 
industry.  Manchester,  after  a  day  or  two  of  hesitation,  pronounced 
at  last  a  decided  verdict.  In  spite  of  some  difficulty  about  drills, 
the  linen-men  of  Belfast  were  well  pleased.  The  slate  people  and 
the  leather  people  frankly  declared  that  the  new  duties  were  all 
that  they  could  desire.  Bradford  and  Leeds,  Nottingham  and 
Leicester,  rose  to  enthusiasm.  The  London  newspapers,  it  is  true, 
were  nearly  all  silent,  but  the  great  merchants  and  manufacturers 
all  over  the  country  were  thoroughly  awake  to  the  volume  of 
wealth  which  the  Treaty  would  pour  into  Great  Britain.  They 
asked  one  another  whether,  while  grants  of  money  were  always 
lavished  on  men  who  achieved  successes  in  war,  the  Government 
could  leave  unnoticed  a  man  who  had  just  achieved  so  vast  a 
success  in  the  field  of  industry  and  peace.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  authorities  of  the  Foreign  Office,  it  is  said,  did  not  even  pass 
the  account  of  the  mere  expenses  of  the  Commission,  a  sum  of 
little  more  than  3000/.  in  all,  without  much  ungracious  demur. 
There  was  a  rumor  that  a  vote  of  money  to  Cobden  would  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  House,  but  it  is  believed  that  the  Government 
declined  the  suggestion.  It  was  customary,  as  it  seemed,  to  make 
presents  of  money  to  military  men  for  doing  their  duty,  but  there 
was  no  precedent  for  offering  such  a  reward  to  volunteer  diplo- 
matists. Cobden's  friends  probably  answered  that  there  was  no 
precedent  for  his  disinterested  lal3or.  What  his  own  mind  was 
upon  this  subject  is  seen  in  the  following  letter  to  Mr.  Bright :  — 

**  Algiers,  i  Feb.,  1861. 

"  If  there  be  the  slightest  whisper  in  any  quarter  of  proposing 
to  vote  me  any  money  for  tlie  work  I  did  in  Paris,  I  rely  on  your 
putting  a  stop  to  it.  Whether  such  an  idea  ever  occurred  to  a 
member  of  the  Government  I  should  doubt.  But  kind  and  offi- 
cious friends  have  suggested  it.  I  repeat,  from  whatever  quarter 
it  may  be  spoken  of,  I  rely  on  your  representing  my"  feelings  and 
determination  by  preventing  its  being  publicly  advocated,  or,  if  so, 
by  declining  it  in  my  name.  It  is  bad  enough  to  have  neglected 
one's  affairs  till  I  am  obliged  to  see  something  of  this  sort  done 
privately  for  my  family.  But  the  two  processes  would  be 
intolerable. 

"  Besides,  if  there  were  no  other  motive,  I  do  not  wish  to  allow 
the  Government  to  be  my  paymaster,  for  a  totally  different  reason. 
The  conduct  of  the  head  of  the  Government  during  my  negotia- 
tions was  so  outrageously  inconsistent,  so  insulting  to  myself  in 
the  position  in  which  I  was  placed,  so  calculated  to  impede  the 


532  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1861. 

work  I  had  in  hand,  and  to  render  it  almost  impossible  for  the 
French  Government  to  fulfil  its  intentions,  that,  as  I  told  Lord 
Cowley,  if  my  heart  had  not  been  in  my  work,  I  should  liave 
thrown  up  my  powders  and  gone  home.  I  allude,  of  course,  to 
Lord  Palmerston's  speech  on  the  fortification  scheme,  and  to  his 
still  worse  one,  if  possible,  just  before  the  close  of  Parliament.  If 
I  had  done  justice  to  myself,  I  should  have  put  on  public  record 
in  a  formal  despatch  my  opinion  of  this  conduct,  which  threw 
ridicule  and  mockery  on  my  whole  proceedings.  But  I  was  re- 
strained solely  by  a  regard  for  the  cause  in  which  I  was  engaged. 
I  was  afraid  that  the  real  motive  was  to  prevent  my  completing 
the  work,  and  was  cautious  therefore  not  to  give  any  good  ground 
for  quarrelling  with  me  and  recalling  me. 

"  To  form  a  fair  judgment  of  this  reckless  levity  and  utter  want 
of  dignity  or  decency  on  the  part  of  the  Prime  Minister,  just  turn 
to  the  volumes  of  the  Life  of  the  first  Lord  Auckland,  who  was 
sent  by  Pitt  to  negotiate  the  Commercial  Treaty  with  France  in 
1786.  I  have  not  seen  the  book,  but  I  can  tell  you  what  you  will 
not  find  in  its  pages :  you  will  not  read  that  in  the  midst  of  those 
negotiations  Pitt  rose  in  the  House  and  declared  that  he  appre- 
hended danger  of  a  sudden  and  unprovoked  attack  on  our  shores 
by  the  French  king ;  that  (whilst  history  told  us  that  we  had 
84,000  men  voted  for  our  navy  to  the  31,000  in  France,  and  whilst 
we  had  150,000  riflemen  assembled  for  drill)  he,  Mr.  Pitt,  pursued 
the  eccentric  course  of  proposing  that  the  nation  should  spend  ten 
millions  on  fortifications,  and  that  he  accompanied  this  with 
speeches  in  the  House  in  which  he  imputed  treacherous  and  un- 
provoked designs  upon  us  on  the  part  of  the  monarch  with  whom 
his  own  plenipotentiary  was  then  negotiating  a  treaty  of  com- 
merce in  Paris.  On  the  contrary,  you  will  find  Pitt  consistently 
defending,  in  all  its  breadth  and  moral  bearings,  his  peaceful 
policy,  and  it  is  the  most  enduring  title  to  fame  that  he  left  in  all 
his  public  career.  ^ 

1  Cobden  was  justified  in  the  contrast  on  which  he  insisted  between  Pitt's  rela- 
tions witli  Eden,  and  Lord  Pahnerston's  treatment  under  similar  circumstances. 
The  Auckland  Correspondence  (i.  86-122)  shows  that  Pitt  entered  into  the  details 
of  the  project  which  he  had  initiated,  with  the  liveliest  zeal  and  interest.  Oddly 
enough,  in  the  course  of  the  negotiations,  suspicions  arose  in  England  of  the  sin- 
cerity of  the  French  Government  on  the  same  grounds  as  were  discovered  in  1 860 — 
tlie  alleged  increase  of  the  French  navy,  and  a  royal  visit  to  Cherbourg,  which  was 
suj^posed  -to  mean  mischief  to  Portsmouth  and  Plymouth.  Eden,  however,  like 
Cobden,  insisted  that  at  Versailles  there  was  every  appearance  of  a  belief  that  Great 
J^ritain  and  France  ought  to  unite  in  some  solid  plan  of  permanent  peace  —  though 
Eden,  imlike  Cobden,  laid  down  the  general  proposition  that  "it  is  difficult  to  feel 
confident  in  the  sincerity  of  any  foreign  court."  The  English  papers  embarrassed 
the  Government  by  their  demand  for  the  destruction  of  Cherbourg,  but  Pitt  kept  a 
cool  head,  along  with  his  firm  hand,  in  the  difficult  negotiations  which  followed  the 
Commercial  Treaty. 

In  defending  the  Treaty,  Pitt  made  the  declaration  which  caused  him  to  be 


^T.  56.]  THE  TARIFF.  533 

"Yet  he  had  far  stronger  grounds  for  suspecting  the  French 
king  of  hostile  designs,  or  of  feeling  resentment  towards  him,  for 
we  had  only  three  years  previously  closed  a  disastrous  war  with 
our  American  colonies,  whose  successful  revolt  was  greatly  the 
result  of  the  unwarrantable  assistance  rendered  to  them  by  the 
French  Government.  On  the  other  hand,  Palmerston  had  not 
one  hostile  act  toiuards  us  to  allege  against  the  sovereign  with 
whom  I  was,  with  his  sanction,  engaged  in  negotiating  the  Treaty. 
The  whole  affair  is  so  shockingly  gross  and  offensive  to  serious 
minds,  that,  unless  we  are  to  degenerate  to  a  nation  of  political 
mountebanks,  it  cannot  be  much  longer  tolerated  that  we  are  to  be 
governed  and  represented  by  such  persons." 

The  Government  proposed  no  vote  of  money,  but  they  did  not 
intend  to  leave  the  negotiator  of  the  Treaty  without  honorable 
recognition.  While  he  was  in  Algiers,  Cobden  received  the  fol- 
lowing  letter  from  the  Prime  Minister  :  — 

"  94,  Piccadilly,  26  March,  1861. 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Cobden,  —  The  Queen  being  desirous  of  mark- 
ing the  sense  she  entertains  of  the  public  service  rendered  by  you 
during  the  long  and  laborious  negotiations  in  which  you  were 
engaged  on  the  subject  of  the  Commercial  Treaty  with  France, 
her  Majesty  has  authorized  me  to  offer  to  you  either  to  be  created 
a  Baronet,  or  to  be  made  a  Privy  Councillor,  whichever  of  the  two 
would  be  most  agreeable  to  you. 

"I  am   aware  that  you  might  not  perhaps  attach  any  great 
intrinsic  value  to  distinctions  of  this  kind,  but  as  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  public  services  they  would  not  fail  to  be  appreciated. 
"My  dear  Mr.  Cobden,  yours  sincerely, 

"  Palmerston. 

"  I  hope  your  health  has  derived  all  the  benefit  you  desired 
from  the  milder  winter  climate  of  Algeria.  You  have  at  all  events 
escaped  the  severest  English  winter  upon  record." 

To  this  Cobden  made  the  reply  that  might  have  been,  and 
probably  was,  anticipated :  — 

''Algiers,  \^h  April,  1861. 

"My  dear  Lord  Palmerston,  —  I  beg  to  acknowledge  tlie 
receipt  of  your  letter  of  the  26th  March,  which  reached  me  yester- 
day only,  on  my  return  after  an  absence  of  ten  days  from  Algiers. 

taunted  with  his  degeneracy  from  the  spirit  of  Chatham  :  "  I  shall  not  hesitate  to 
contend  against  the  too  frequently  expressed  opinion  that  France  is,  and  must  be, 
the  unalterable  enemy  of  England.  My  mind  revolts  from  this  position  as  mon- 
strous and  impossible.  To  suppose  that  any  nation  can  be  unalterably  the  enemy 
of  another  is  weak  and  childish."  Fox,  unluckily  for  the  wholeness  of  his  reputa- 
tion, insisted  on  imputing  sinister  motives  to  France  in  the  Treaty  negotiations. 


534  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1861. 

Whilst  entertaining  the  same  sentiment  of  gratitude  towards  the 
Queen  which  I  could  have  felt  if  I  had  accepted  the  offer  you 
have  been  so  good  as  to  make  me  in  her  name,  I  must  beg  per- 
mission most  respectfully  to  deny  myself  the  honor  which  her 
Majesty  has  graciously  proposed  to  confer  on  me.  An  indisposi- 
tion to  accept  a  title  being  in  my  case  rather  an  affair  of  feeling 
than  of  reason,  I  will  not  dwell  further  on  the  subject. 

"  With  respect,  however,  to  the  particular  occasion  for  which  it 
is  proposed  to  confer  on  me  this  distinction,  T  may  say  that  it 
would  not  be  agreeable  to  me  to  accept  a  recompense  in  any  form 
for  my  recent  labors  in  Paris.  The  only  reward  I  desire  is  to  live 
to  witness  an  improvement  in  the  relations  of  the  two  great 
neighboring  nations  which  have  been  brought  into  more  intimate 
connection  by  the  Treaty  of  Commerce. 

"  I  remain,  my  dear  Lord  Palmerston, 

"Yours  sincerely, 

"  E.  COBDEN. 

"  In  reply  to  your  kind  inquiry,  I  may  say  that  my  health  has 
derived  much  benefit  from  the  beautiful  summer  weather  which  I 
have  had  the  good  fortune  to  experience  here.  The  winter  has 
been  exceptionally  fine  with  us,  whilst  it  seems  to  have  been 
unusually  severe  in  England." 

No  other  course  could  have  been  reconcilable  with  Cobden's 
/  pure  and  simple  type  of  citizenship.  To  him  the  service  was  its 
own  reward.  The  whole  system  of  decoration  was  alien  to  the 
antique  and  homely  spirit  of  his  patriotism.  He  never  used  great 
words  about  such  things,  nor  spoke  bitterly  of  those  who  coveted 
and  prized  them.  On  one  occasion  Mr.  Gladstone,  not  long  after 
the  conclusion  of  the  Treaty,  invited  him  to  one  of  his  official 
state  dinners.  "  To  tell  you  the  truth,"  Cobden  replied,  "  I  have 
never  had  the  courage  to  get  a  court  costume ;  and  as  I  do  not 
like  being  singular  by  coming  in  ordinary  dress,  I  will  beg  you  to 
excuse  me."  There  were  no  heroics  about  him  in  encountering 
these  trifling  symbols  of  a  social  ordering  -with  which  he  did  not 
sympathize.  He  merely  practised,  almost  without  claiming  it, 
the  riglit  of  living  his  own  plain  life,  and  satisfying  his  own  ideals 
of  civic  self-respect. 


^T.56.]  THE   POLICY   OF  THE   COMMERCIAL  TREATY.  63i5 

CHAPTEK  XXXII. 

THE   POLICY   OF  THE   COMMEKCIAL  TREATY. 

It  will  be  convenient  to  insert  here  a  few  short  remarks  on 
the  general  character  of  the  work  that  Cobden  had  now  accom- 
plished. We  shall  find  that  under  a  different  form  it  must  still 
be  regarded  as  an  extension  of  the  same  principles  which  had  in- 
spired his  first  great  effort.  It  was  one  more  move  in  the  direction 
of  free  exchange.  By  many  prominent  men,  indeed,  at  the  time, 
and  by  many  more  afterwards,  the  Treaty  was  regarded  as  an 
infraction  of  sound  economic  principles.  Some  came  to  this 
opinion  from  lack  of  accuracy,  but  more  from  a  failure  in  copious- 
ness of  thought.  One  or  two  of  those  who  had  been  with  Cob- 
den in  the  van  of  the  assault  on  the  Corn  Laws,  now  looked 
askance  on  a  transaction  which  savored  of  the  fallacy  of  recipro- 
city. Those  rigid  adherents  of  economics  who  insist,  in  Mill's 
phrase,  on  treating  their  science  as  if  it  were  a  thing  not  to  guide 
our  judgment,  but  to  stand  in  its  place,  denounced  the  doctrine 
of  treaties  as  a  new-fangled  heresy.  Even  the  old  Protectionists 
professed  a  virtuous  alarm  at  an  innovation  on  the  principles  of 
Free  Trade. 

The  discussion  of  1860  did  little  more  than  reproduce  a  dis- 
cussion that  had  taken  place  seventeen  years  before.  When  Sir 
Robert  Peel  entered  office,  he  found  four  sets  of  negotiations 
pending  for  commercial  treaties,  between  England  and  France, 
Portugal,  Spain,  and  Brazil.  Those  with  France  were  obviously 
the  most  important.  Affairs  in  Syria  had  interrupted  them,  but 
Peel  resumed  the  negotiations.  He  was  most  anxious  for  a  Tariff 
Treaty.  "  I  should  not,"  he  said,  as  Pitt  had  said  before  him,  and 
as  Cobden  and  Mr.  Gladstone  said  after  him,  "  estimate  the  ad- 
vantage of  an  extended  commercial  intercourse  with  France  merely 
in  respect  to  the  amount  of  pecuniary  gain  ;  but  I  value  that 
intercourse  on  account  of  the  effect  it  is  calculated  to  produce  in 
promoting  the  feelings  of  amity  and  good-will  between  two  great 
nations.  I  should  regard  that  mutual  intercourse  in  commercial 
affairs  as  giving  an  additional  security  for  the  permanent  main- 
tenance of  peace."  ^  Unfortunately,  the  negotiations  fell  through. 
Guizot  said  that  he  could  not  pass  any  such  measure  through  the 
Chambers.     Nor  was  there  better  success  in  other  quarters. 

In  1843,  Mr.  J.  L.  Ricardo  had  introduced  a  resolution  in  the 

1  April  25,  1843. 


536  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [186a 

House  of  Commons,  declaring  the  inexpediency  of  postponing 
remissions  of  duty  with  a  view  of  making  such  remissions  a  basis 
of  commercial  negotiations.  This  was  a  reply  from  the  pure 
economic  party  to  Peel's  statement  already  quoted  (see  above,  p. 
471),  that  he  did  not  reduce  the  wine  duties  because  he  hoped  to 
make  them  the  instruments  of  treaties  with  foreign  countries. 
Kicardo  prefaced  his  resolution  by  a  speech,  which  was  very  able, 
but  which  pressed  for  Free  Trade  without  delay,  restriction,  or 
qualification.  The  only  process  to  which  they  need  resort  against 
hostile  tariffs  was  to  open  the  ports.  Mr.  Gladstone  answered 
Eicardo  by  the  same  arguments  that  were  afterwards  used  to  de- 
fend his  own  policy  in  1860.  Mr.  Disraeli,  not  at  all  disclaiming 
Free  Trade  as  a  general  policy,  supported  Mr.  Gladstone  against 
the  ultra-Free-Traders  in  a  speech  remarkable  to  this  day  for  its 
large  and  comprehensive  survey  of  the  whole  field  of  our  com- 
merce, and  for  its  discernment  of  the  channels  in  which  it  would 
expand.  On  the  immediate  question,  Mr.  Disraeli  gave  a  definite 
opinion  in  support  of  the  Minister.  "In  forming  connections 
with  the  states  of  Europe,"  he  said,  "  it  was  obvious  that  we  could 
only  proceed  by  negotiations.  Diplomacy  stepped  in  to  weigh 
and  adjust  contending  interests,  to  obtain  mutual  advantages,  and 
ascertain  reciprocal  equivalents.  Our  commerce  with  Europe 
could  only  be  maintained  and  extended  by  treaties."  ^ 

Cobden  supported  Eicardo's  motion,  not  on  the  rather  abstract 
grounds  of  the  mover  and  others,  but  because  it  was  a  way  of 
preventing  a  Government  "  which  was  the  creature  of  monopoly, 
from  meddling  with  any  of  our  commercial  arrangements."  The 
envoy  to  Brazil,  he  said,  had  been  sent  out  to  obtain  the  best 
terms  for  the  West  Indian  sugar  monopolists,  and  he  quoted  the 
description  by  a  Brazilian  senator,  of  the  people  of  Great  Britain 
as  the  slaves  of  a  corn,  sugar,  coffee,  and  timber  oligarchy. 

Was  it  fit,  Cobden  asked,  that  the  executive  government  should 
be  allowed  to  go  all  over  the  world  to  seek  for  impediments  to 
Free  Trade  abroad,  in  order  to  excuse  them  in  resisting  the  re- 
moval of  impediments  at  home  ?  It  might  be  very  well  to  talk 
of  a  commercial  treaty  with  Portugal,  but  abolish  the  monopolies 
of  sugar,  corn,  and  coffee,  and  the  vast  continents  of  North  and 
South  America  would  be  opened  to  the  manufactures  of  Great 
Britain.  Characteristically  enough,  he  kept  close  to  the  imme- 
diate and  particular  bearings  of  the  discussion,  and  nothing  was 
said  by  him  in  1843  that  was  inconsistent  with  his  position  in 
1860.  Eicardo,  again,  in  1844  brought  forward  a  resolution  to 
the  effect  that  our  commercial  intercourse  with  foreign  nations 
would  be  best  promoted  by  regulating  our  own  customs  duties  as 

1  Feb.  14,  1843.  "Sign  the  treaty  of  commerce  with  France,"  Mr.  Disraeli 
cried,  "  that  will  give  present  relief." 


^T.  56.]  THE   POLICY   OF  THE   COMMERCIAL  TREATY.  537 

might  be  best  suited  to  our  own  interests,  without  reference  to  the 
amount  of  duties  which  foreign  powers  might  think  expedient  to 
levy  on  British  goods.  The  discussion  was  very  meagre,  and  the 
House  was  counted  ont. 

To  return  to  the  Treaty  of  1860.  Cobden,  unable  to  be  present 
to  defend  his  measure  in  the  House  of  Commons,  took  up  the 
points  of  the  case  against  it  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Bright :  — 

"  I  observe  that  some  of  the  recent  converts  to  Free  Trade,  who 
gave  you  and  me  so  much  trouble  to  convert  them,  are  concerned 
at  our  doing  anything  so  unsound  as  to  enter  into  a  Commercial 
Treaty.  I  will  undertake  that  there  is  not  a  syllable  on  our  side 
of  the  Treaty  that  is  inconsistent  with  the  soundest  principles  of 
Free  Trade.  We  do  not  propose  to  reduce  a  duty  which,  on  its 
own  merits,  ought  not  to  have  been  dealt  with  long  ago.  We 
give  no  concessions  to  France  which  do  not  apply  to  all  other 
nations.  We  leave  ourselves  free  to  lay  on  any  amount  of  inter- 
nal duties,  and  to  put  on  an  equal  tax  on  foreign  articles  of  the 
same  kind  at  the  Custom  House.  It  is  true  we  bind  ourselves, 
for  ten  years,  not  otherwise  to  raise  such  of  our  customs  as  affect 
the  French  trade,  or  put  on  fresh  ones  ;  and  this,  I  think,  no  true 
Free  Trader  will  regret. 

"  And  here  I  may  suggest,  that  if  you  observe  the  members  on 
the  Opposition  side  averse  to  parting  with  the  power  of  putting 
on  higher  customs  duties  on  these  articles  of  French  origin,  it 
may  be  well  to  read  them  a  lesson  on  the  impossibility  of  their 
being  able  to  lay  any  further  burdens  on  commerce  in  future,  and 
to  remind  them  that,  if  they  sanction  higher  expenditure,  they 
must  expect  to  pay  it  in  a  direct  income  tax.  Public  opinion, 
without  any  French  Treaty,  is  daily  tending  to  this  result. 

"  There  being  no  objection  on  the  ground  of  principle,  there 
are,  and  will  be,  many  specious  arguments  resorted  to  by  those 
who  really  at  heart  have  no  sympathy  for  a  cordial  union  between 
the  two  nations,  for  defeating  or  marring  the  projected  Treaty. 
Of  course  these  fallacies  you  will  easily  deal  with.  I  observe 
they  often  answer  themselves.  For  instance,  in  the  same  breath, 
we  are  told  that  we  have  emptied  our  budget  and  given  every- 
thing to  France  already,  and  then  that  we  are  going  now  to  give 
everything  and  receive  nothing.  Then  we  are  told  that  it  is  very 
wrong  to  reduce  the  duties  on  French  wines,  because  France  is 
going  to  lower  the  duties  on  British  iron ;  and  in  the  same  breath 
are  reproaclied  for  including  Spain  and  Portugal  in  our  *  conces- 
sions,' without  obtaining  anything  in  return !  I  am  really  lialf 
inclined  to  share  your  suspicions  that  there  are  influences  at 
work,  hostile  to  any  policy  whicli  shall  put  an  end  to  the  present 
state  of  armed  hostility  and  suspicion  between  France  and  Eng- 
land.    God  forgive  me  if  I  do  any  body  of  men  the  injustice  of 


538  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [I860.'' 

I 
attributing  to  them  wrongfully  such  an  infernal  policy.  It  is,  per- 
haps, hardly  consciously  that  anybody  would  pursue  such  a  course. 

"  But  surely,  if  people  wished  to  see  the  relations  of  the  two 
countries  improved,  they  would  never  attempt  to  impede  the  only 
sure  means  of  attaining  that  end  by  such  frivolous  objections. 
These  people  seem  to  think  that  Free  Trade  in  France  can  be 
carried  by  a  logical,  orderly,  methodical  yn^ocess,  without  resorting 
to  stratagem,  or  anything  like  an  indirect  proceeding.  They 
forget  the  political  plots  and  contrivances,  and  the  fearful  ad- 
juncts of  starvation,  which  were  necessary  for  carrying  similar 
measures  in  England.  They  forget  how  Free  Trade  was  wrested 
from  the  reluctant  majorities  of  both  our  Houses  of  Parliament. 
Surely  Louis  Napoleon  has  as  good  a  right,  and  may  plead  as 
strong  motives  of  duty,  for  cheating  (if  I  may  use  the  word)  the 
majorities  of  his  Senate  into  an  honest  policy,  as  Peel  had  in 
dealing  with  the  House  of  Lords.  The  Emperor  of  the  French 
was  elected  by  the  whole  people,  not  only  to  administer  their 
laws,  but  to  legislate  for  them.  They  do  not  expect,  as  we  do  in 
England,  to  initiate  reforms.  They  look  for  amelioration  from 
above.  When  speaking  with  the  Emperor,  he  observed  to  me 
that  the  protected  interests  were  organized,  and  the  general  public 
was  not ;  and,  therefore,  the  contest  was  as  unequal  as  between 
a  disciplined  regiment  and  a  mob.  The  answer  was  obvious : 
*Your  Majesty  is  the  organization  of  the  masses.'  And  I  am 
earnestly  of  opinion  that  he  is  now  acting  under  this  impulse  and 
conviction." 

The  direct  effects  of  the  Treaty  upon  the  exchange  of  products 
between  England  and  France  have  been  too  palpable  to  be  denied. 
In  1858  the  total  exports  from  England  to  France  amounted  to 
no  more  than  nine  million  pounds,  and  the  imports  from  France 
to  thirteen  millions.  Nineteen  years  later,  in  1877,  the  British 
exports  and  re-exports  had  risen  from  nine  to  twenty-five  million 
pounds,  and  the  imports  from  France  to  forty-five  millions. 

The  indirect  effects  of  the  Treaty  were  less  plainly  visible,  but 
they  cannot  be  left  out  of  account  if  we  seek  to  view  the  Treaty 
policy  as  a  whole.  England  cleared  her  tariff  of  protection,  and 
reduced  the  duties  which  were  retained  for  purposes  of  revenue 
'  on  the  two  French  staples  of  wine  and  brandy.  France,  on  her 
part,  replaced  prohibition  by  a  system  of  moderate  duties.  If 
this  had  been  all,  it  might  have  been  fair  to  talk  about  reciprocity, 
though  even  then,  when  it  is  a  reciprocity  in  lowering  and  not  in 
raising  duties,  the  word  ceases  altogether  to  be  a  term  of  reproach. 
But  the  matter  did  not  end  here.  The  Treaty  with  France  was 
not  like  the  famous  Methuen  Treaty  with  Portugal  (1703),  an 
exclusive  bargain,  to  the  specified  disadvantage  of  a  nation  out- 
side of  the  compact.     In  1703  we  bound  ourselves  to  keep  our 


JEt.56.]  the   policy   OF  THE   COMMERCIAL  TREATY.  539 

duties  on  French  wines  one  third  higher  than  the  duty  on  the 
wines  of  Portugal.  This  was  the  type  of  treaty  which  Adam 
Smith  had  in  his  mind  when  he  wrote  his  chapter  on  the  subject. 
Pitt's  Treaty  with  France  (1786)  was  of  a  different  and  better 
kind;  and  his  motive  in  making  it  was  not  diplomatic  or  political, 
as  had  been  the  case  in  the  old-fashioned  treaties  of  commerce, 
but  truly  economical  and  social.  He  wished  to  legalize  the  com- 
merce which  was  carried  on  illegally,  and  to  an  immense  extent, 
by  smuggling,  always  the  spontaneous  substitute  for  free  trade  ^:, 
and  he  boldly  accepted,  moreover,  the  seeming  paradox  that  re-' 
duction  of  duties  may  lead  to  increase  of  revenue.^  Neither 
party  stipulated  for  any  peculiar  advantages.  Still,  the  benefits 
of  the  Treaty  were  confined  to  the  two  nations  who  made  it.  In 
1860  England  lowered  her  duties,  not  only  in  favor  of  French  pro- 
ducts, but  in  favor  of  the  same  products  from  all  other  countries. 
The  reforms  which  France  and  England  now  made  in  favor  of  one 
another,  in  the  case  of  England  actually  were,  and  in  the  case  of 
France  were  to  be,  extended  to  other  nations  as  well.  This  was 
not  reciprocity  of  monopoly,  but  reciprocity  of  freedom,  or  partial 
freedom.  England  had  given  up  the  system  of  differential  duties, 
and  France  knew  that  the  products  of  every  other  country  would 
receive  at  the  English  ports  exactly  the  same  measure  and  treat- 
ment as  her  own.  France,  on  the  other  hand,  openly  intended 
to  take  her  Treaty  with  England  as  a  model  for  Treaties  with 
the  rest  of  Europe,  and  to  concede  by  Treaty  with  as  many  Gov- 
ernments as  might  wish,  a  tariff  just  as  favorable  as  that  which 
had  been  arranged  with  England.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  within 
five  years  after  the  negotiations  of  1860,  France  had  made  Treaties 
with  Belgium,  the  ZoUvereiu,  Italy,  Sweden  and  Norway,  Swit- 
zerland, and  Austria. 

In  these,  and  in  the  treaty  made  afterwards  by  England  with 
Austria,  Sir  Louis  Mallet  reminded  its  opponents  in  later  years, 
that  each  of  them  had  a  double  operation.  Not  only  does  each 
treaty  open  the  market  of  another  country  to  foreign  industry ; 
it  immediately  affects  the  markets  that  are  already  opened.  For 
every  recent  treaty  recognized  the  "  most  favored  nation  "  princi 
pie,  the  sheet-anchor  of  Free  Trade,  as  it  has  been  called.  By 
means  of  this  principle,  each  new  point  gained  in  any  one  negoti- 
ation becomes  a  part  of  the  common  commercial  system  of  the 
European  confederation.  "By  means  of  this  network,"  it  has 
been  excellently  said  by  a  distinguished  member  of  the  English 
diplomatic  service,  "  of  which  few  Englishmen  seem  to  be  aware^ 

1  "Only  600,000  gallons  of  French  brandy  were  legally  imported  in  a  year, 
while  no  less  than  4,000,000  of  gallons  were  believed  to  be  every  year  imported 
into  England.  And  since  there  was  a  total  prohibition  of  French  cambrics,  every 
yard  of  them  sold  in  England  must  have  come  in  by  illicit  means."  —  Lord  Stan- 
hope's Life  of  Pitt,  i.  316,  317. 


540  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [I860. 

while  fewer  still  know  to  whom  they  owe  it,  all  the  great  trad- 
ing and  industrial  communities  of  Europe,  i.  e.  England,  France, 
Holland,  Belgium,  the  Zollverein  (1870),  Austria,  and  Italy,  con- 
stitute a  compact  international  body,  from  which  the  principle  of 
monopoly  and  exclusive  privilege  has  once  for  all  been  eliminated, 
and  not  one  member  of  which  can  take  off  a  single  duty  without 
all  the  other  members  at  once  partaking  in  the  increased  trading 
facilities  thereby  created.  By  the  self-registering  action  of  the 
most  favored  nation  clause,  common  to  this  network  of  treaties, 
the  tariff  level  of  the  whole  body  is  being  continually  lowered, 
and  the  road  being  paved  towards  the  final  embodiment  of  the 
Free  Trade  principle  in  the  international  engagement  to  abolish 
all  duties  other  than  those  levied  for  revenue  purposes." 

In  face  of  unquestioned  facts  of  this  kind,  nothing  can  be  less 
statesmanlike  than  to  deny  that  the  treaties  since  1860  have 
helped  forward  the  great  process  of  liberating  the  exchange  of 
the  products  of  their  industry  among  the  nations  of  the  world. 
It  is  amazing  to  find  able  men  so  overmastered  by  a  mistaken 
conception  of  what  it  is  that  economic  generalization  can  do  for 
us,  as  to  believe  that  they  nullify  the  substantial  service  thus  ren- 
dered by  commercial  treaties  of  Cobden's  type  to  the  beneficent 
end  of  international  co-operation,  by  the  mere  utterance  of  some  for- 
mula of  economic  incantation.  If  the  practical  effect  of  the  com- 
mercial treaties  after  1860,  as  conceived  and  inspired  by  Cobden, 
has  been,  without  any  drawback  worth  considering,  to  lead  Europe 
by  a  considerable  stride  towards  the  end  proposed  by  the  parti- 
sans of  Free  Trade,  then  it  is  absurd  to  quarrel  with  the  treaties 
because  they  do  not  sound  in  tune  with  the  verbal  jingle  of  an 
abstract  dogma.  It  is  beside  the  mark  to  meet  the  advantages 
gained  by  the  international  action  of  commercial  treaties  by 
the  formula,  "Take  care  of  your  imports,  and  the  exports  will 
take  care  of  themselves."  The  decisive  consideration  is  that  we 
can  only  procure  imports  from  other  countries  on  the  cheapest 
possible  terms,  on  condition  that  producers  in  those  countries 
are  able  to  receive  our  exports  on  the  cheapest  possible  terms. 
Foreign  producers  can  only  do  this,  on  condition  that  their  gov- 
ernments can  be  induced  to  lower  hostile  tariffs ;  and  foreign 
governments  are  only  able,  or  choose  to  believe  that  they  are 
only  able,  to  lower  tariffs  in  face  of  the  strength  of  the  protected 
interests,  by  means  of  a  commercial  treaty.  The  effect  of  a  chain 
of  such  treaties  —  and  the  chain  is  automatically  linked  togetlier 
by  the  favored  nation  clause  —  is  to  lower  duties  all  round,  and 
lowering  duties  all  round  is  the  essential  and  indispensable  con- 
dition of  each  country  procuring  for  itself  on  the  lowest  possible 
terms  imports  from  all  other  countries. 

It  is  an  economic  error  to  confine  our  view  to  the  imports  or 


JEr.  56.]  THE   POLICY   OF  THE   COMMERCIAL  TREATY.  541 

exports  of  our  own  country.  In  the  case  of  England,  these  are 
intimately  connected  with,  and  dependent  upon,  the  great  cir- 
culating system  of  the  whole  world's  trade.  Nobody  has  fully 
grasped  the  bearings  of  Free  Trade,  who  does  not  realize  what  the 
international  aspect  of  every  commercial  transaction  amounts  to ; 
how  the  conditions  of  production  and  exchange  in  any  one  coun- 
try affect,  both  actually  and  potentially,  the  corresponding  condi- 
tions in  every  other  country.  It  is  not  Free  Trade  between  any 
two  countries  that  is  the  true  aim ;  but  to  remove  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  the  stream  of  freely  exchanging  commodities,  that  ought, 
like  the  Oceanus  of  primitive  geography,  to  encircle  the  whole 
habitable  world.  In  this  circulating  system  every  tariff  is  an 
obstruction,  and  the  free  circulation  of  commodities  is  in  the  long 
run  as  much  impeded  by  an  obstruction  at.  one  frontier  as  at 
another.^  This  is  one  answer  to  an  idea  which  has  been  lately 
broached  among  us,  under  stress  of  the  temporary  reaction  against 
Free  Trade.  It  has  been  suggested  that,  though  we  cannot  restore 
Protection  in  its  old  simplicity,  yet  we  might  establish  a  sort  of 
National  Imperial  Customs  Union  among  the  English  dominions. 
The  territory  over  which  the  flag  of  Great  Britain  waves  is  so 
enormous,  and  so  varied  in  productive  conditions,  that  we  could 
well  afford,  it  is  urged,  to  shut  ourselves  within  our  own  walls, 
developing  our  own  resources,  and  consolidating  a  strong  national 
sentiment,  until  the  nations  who  are  now  fighting  us  with  pro- 
tective tariffs  come  round  to  a  better  mind.  The  answer  to  this 
is  that  the  removal  of  the  restriction  on  the  circulation  to  a  more 
distant  point  would  not  affect  the  vital  fact  that  the  circulation 
would  still  be  restricted  and  interrupted.  To  induce  our  colonies 
and  dependencies  to  admit  our  goods  free,  would  of  course  be  so 
much  gained;  just  as  the  freedom  of  interior  or  domestic  com- 
merce, which  was  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  the  early  prosperity 
of  Great  Britain,  was  by  so  much  a  gain  over  the  French  system, 
which  cut  off  province  from  province  by  customs  barriers  during 
the  same  period.  But  freedom  of  internal  commerce,  whether 
within  an  island  or  over  a  wide  empire,  is  still  not  the  same  thing 
as  universal  freedom  of  exchange.  An  interruption,  at  whatever 
point  in  the  great  currents  of  exchange,  must  always  remain  an 
interruption  and  a  disadvantage.  England  is  especially  interested 
in  any  transaction  that  tends  to  develop  trade  between  any  nations 
whatever.  We  derive  benefit  from  it  in  one  way  or  another.  The 
mother  country  has  no  interest  in  going  into  a  Customs  Union 
with  her  colonies,  with  the  idea  of  giving  them  any  advantage  or 
supposed  advantage  in  trading  with  her  over  foreign  countries. 

^  This  is  worked  out  with  vicror  and  acuteness  in  the  admirable  pamphlet  pub- 
lished by  the  Cobden  Club  in  1870,  entitled,  Commercial  Treaties :  Free  Trade  mid 
Internationalism.     Four  Letters  by  a  Disciple  of  Richard  Cobden. 


542  LIFE   OP  COBDEN.  [1859. 

It  is  not  enough,  therefore,  to  remove  our  own  protective  duties, 
though  Peel  may  have  been  right  under  the  circumstances  of  the 
time  in  saying  that  the  best  way  of  lighting  a  hostile  taViff  is  by 
reforming  your  own.  It  is  the  business  of  the  economic  states- 
man to  watch  for  opportunities  of  inducing  other  nations  to  mod- 
ify duties  on  imports ;  because  the  release  of  the  consumers  of 
other  nations  is  not  only  a  stimulus  to  your  own  production  for 
exportation,  but  has  an  effect  in  the  supply  of  the  imports  which 
you  declare  to  be  the  real  object  of  your  solicitude. 

This  was  the  conception  at  the  bottom  of  the  Commercial  Treaty 
of  1860.  "  A  treaty  with  France,"  said  Mr.  Gladstone,  "  is  even 
in  itself  a  measure  of  no  small  consequence  ;  but  that  which  gives 
to  a  measure  of  that  kind  its  highest  value  is  its  tendency  to  pro- 
duce beneficial  imitation  in  other  quarters.  It  is  the  fact  that,  in 
concluding  that  Treaty,  we  did  not  give  to  one  a  privilege  which 
we  withheld  from  another,  but  that  our  Treaty  with  France  was, 
in  fact,  a  treaty  with  the  world,  and  wide  are  the  consequences 
which  engagements  of  that  kind  carry  in  their  train." 


CHAPTEE   XXXIII. 

MISCELLANEOUS   CORRESPONDENCE,   1859-60  —  PARIS  —  RETURN 
TO   ENGLAND. 

The  business  of  the  Treaty  did  not  prevent  Cobden  from  keeping 
up  his  usual  copious  correspondence.  Much  of  it,  as  might  be 
expected,  had  to  do  with  his  work  in  Paris ;  but  he  kept  a  keen 
eye  upon  w^hat  was  going  on  elsewhere,  and  no  effort  that  pointed 
in  the  right  direction  escaped  him.  Some  extracts  from  the  cor- 
respondence of  this  period  will  still  be  found  interesting,  both 
because  they  illustrate  the  character  of  the  writer,  and  because 
they  contain  ideas  on  questions  which  even  now  are  far  from 
having  run  their  full  course. 

(1.)  To  Mr.  Bright 

On  December  1,  1859,  Mr.  Bright  made  a  speech  at  Liverpool,  upon  the 
invitation  of  the  Financial  Reform  Association  of  that  city.  In  this  speech 
he  unfolded  a  plan,  which,  as  has  been  truly  said  of  it,  involved  a  complete 
financial  revolution.  The  main  features  of  the  proposals  were,  that  the  in- 
come tax,  the  assessed  taxes  (except  the  house- tax),  the  tax  on  marine  and 
fire  insurances,  and  the  excise  on  paper,  should  be  repealed  ;  all  duties  in 
the  tariff  should  be  abolished,  save  those  on  wine,  spirits,  and  tobacco  ;  and, 
to  replace  the  deficiency  thus  created,  there  should  be  a  tax  of  eight  shillings 
on  every  hundred  pounds  of  fixed  income. 


^T.55.]  MISCELLANEOUS   CORRESPONDENCE.  543 

Dec.  16, 1859.  —  "I have  been  much  pleased  with  the  perusal  of 
your  masterly  statement  at  Liverpool,  every  word  of  which  I  have 
read.  After  all,  I  hardly  know  that  the  Liverpool  men  could  do 
a  better  service  than  in  preaching  the  abstract  doctrine  of  direct 
taxation.  People  are  attracted  by  the  advocacy  of  a  principle,  to 
which  alone  we  can  feel  any  strong  and  lasting  devotion.  The  ^ 
threat  of  direct  taxes  held  over  our  aristocracy,  may  perhaps  do  a 
little  to  restrain  their  proneness  to  Government  extravagance ; 
and  it  will  help  an  honest  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  to  move 
forward  in  the  path  of  commercial  reform.  There  is  an  apparent 
tendency  in  your  speeches  to  advocate  the  interest  of  the  working 
class  as  apart  from  the  upper  classes.  Now,  I  am  sorry  to  say 
that,  whenever  the  case  is  so  posed,  there  is  a  tendency  in  the 
middle  class  to  range  themselves  with  those  above  them,  to  resist 
a  common  danger.  Your  witticism  of  the  middle  class  being 
invited  to  be  the  squire  of  the  class  above  has  been  realized. 
Therefore,  I  have  always  studiously  abstained  from  using  the 
words  '  working  class,'  as  apart  from  the  middle  class,  in  discuss- 
ing the  question  of  taxation.  For  you  see  how  eagerly  your 
opponents  parade  the  poor  widow  of  100/.  a  year.  I  cannot  sepa-. 
rate  the  interest  of  the  small  shopkeeper  and  the  laborer,  or  the 
manufacturer  and  his  operatives,  in  the  question  of  taxation.  In- 
deed, ultimately,  God  has  made  all  our  interests  in  the  matter  one 
and  indivisible.  I  do  not  believe  there  is  a  hairsbreadth  of  differ- 
ence between  us,  but  you  seem  to  take  the  working  class  some- 
times too  exclusively  under  your  protection.  They  are  quite 
powerless  as  opposed  to  the  middle  and  upper  classes,  which  is  a 
good  reason  why  they  should  not  be  allowed  to  be  made  to  appear 
to  be  in  antat^onism  to  both. 

"  There  is  another  point  on  which  we  should  not  differ  in  our 
cool  moments,  but  on  which  you  are  sometimes  carried  away  in 
the  excitement  of  a  speech  beyond  me.  I  mean  where  you  seem 
to  assume  that  a  wiser  policy  in  taxation  or  other  matters  will  i 
necessarily  follow  from  a  democratic  reform.  I  am  always  willing 
to  take  my  chance  of  the  consequences  of  such  a  change.  If  the 
majority  in  a  democracy  injure  me  and  themselves  at  the  same 
time  by  unsound  legislation,  I  have  at  least  the  consolation  of 
knowing  that  they  are  honest  in  their  errors,  and  that  a  convic- 
tion of  their  mistake  will  for  their  own  sakes  lead  to  a  change. 
It  is  far  different  where  you  are  wronged  by  a  self-interested 
minority.  But  I  do  not  feel  so  confident  as  yourself  that  a  great 
extension  of  the  franchise  would  necessarily  lead  to  a  wiser  sys- 
tem of  taxation.  On  this  subject  I  got  a  letter  lately  from 
Senator  Mason,  of  Virginia,  in  which  he  says,  speaking  of  direct 
taxation,  '  Our  people  are  not  yet  philosophical  enough  to  know  ^^ 
that  it  is  safer  to  feel  the  tax  when  you  pay  it,  than  to  pay  it 


544  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1859. 

without  feeling  it.'  I  am  afraid  that  this  rather  pithy  remark 
would  apply  to  all  other  people  at  present.  I  have  done  with 
my  dissentient  remarks,  which  after  all  would  not  lead  me  into 
an  opposite  lobby  to  yourself,  if  we  had  five  minutes'  discussion 
together." 

(2.)  To  Mr.  Bright 

Considerations  on  Mr.  Bright's  general  course  and  policy. 

"Dec.  29,  1859.  —  You  will  be  speaking  at  Birmingham  again 
soon.  It  is  hard  to  tell  what  to  say.  If  you  are  intense  on 
Eeform,  you  will  have  a  hearty  response  from  the  meeting,  and 
little  beyond  it.  If  you  are  cooler  than  your  wont,  you  will  dis- 
appoint your  hearers.  Were  I  in  your  place,  I  should  not  dwell 
too  much  on  the  Reform  to]Dic.  But  then,  what  else  can  you 
talk  about  ?  I  should  like  to  see  you  turn  the  tables  on  those 
who  have  wasted  another  autumn  on  another  bubble  cry.  But 
perhaps  people  are  not  yet  sufficiently  out  of  breath  with  the  cry 
to  listen  to  you.  I  observe  the  Times,  having  led  the  pack  all 
through  the  phantom  chase,  is  now  turning  round,  and  saying 
that  it  was  not  from  fear  of  the  French  that  we  were  called  on  to 
arm.  And  this  line  is  taken  by  its  followers.  I  have  always  ob- 
served that,  as  the  time  for  the  meeting  of  Parliament  approaches, 
the  newspapers  put  on  a  more  decent  regard  for  propriety  and 
consistency.  They  feel  that  a  power  of  refutation  and  exposure 
is  at  hand  when  the  House  is  in  Session.  This  last  autumn's 
escapade  of  the  good  British  public,  calling  its  youth  to  arm 
against  an  imaginary  foe,  after  having  seen  twenty-six  millions 
voted  for  its  protection,  is  one  of  the  most  discouraging  and 
humiliating  spectacles  I  have  witnessed.  The  effect  it  has  on 
me  is  to  produce  a  feeling  of  indifference.  To  be  too  much  in 
earnest  in  the  cause  of  common  sense,  with  the  liability  to  see 
one's  countrymen  running  mad  every  year  or  two  after  any 
visionary  programme  launched  by  the  anonymous  writers  of  the 
Ti7nes,  is  only  calculated  to  injure  one's  digestion,  and  perhaps 
ruin  one's  health ;  and  so  I  try  to  cultivate  a  stoical  apathy. 

"  Perhaps  we  are  wrong  in  aiming  at  producing  too  large  results 
within  a  given  time.  I  do  not,  as  I  grow  older,  lose  my  faith  in 
humanity,  and  its  future  destinies ;  but  I  do  every  year  —  per- 
haps it  is  natural  with  increasing  years  —  feel  less  sanguine  in 
my  hope  of  seeing  any  material  change  in  my  own  day  and  gen- 
eration. I  sometimes  doubt  whether  you  would  not  have  done 
more  wisely  to  rely  on  your  House  of  Commons  influence,  and 
been  more  shy  of  the  Stump.  Your  greatest  power  is  in  the 
House.  In  quiet  times,  there  is  no  influence  to  be  had  from 
without,  and  if  we  fell  into  evil  days  of  turbulence,  and  suffering, 


J:t.  55.]  MISCELLANEOUS   CORRESPONDENCE.  545 

and  agitation,  less  scrupulous  leaders  would  carry  off  the  masses. 
You  are  not  the  less  qualified  to  take  your  true  position,  from 
having  shown  that  you  are  an  outside,  as  well  as  an  inside,  leader. 
But  I  have  an  opinion  that  if  you  intend  to  follow  politics,  and 
not  eschew  office,  you  must  in  future  be  more  exclusively  a  House 
of  Commons  man. 

"And  then  you  must  make  up  your  mind  to  accept  certain, 
conditions  of  things  as  a  part  of  our  English  political  existence 
during  your  time.  For  instance,  the  Church  and  Aristocracy  are 
great  realities,  which  will  last  for  your  life  and  your  sons'.  To 
ignore  them  or  despise  them  is  equally  incompatible  with  the 
part  which  I  think  you  have  the  ambition  to  play,  and  which  I 
am  sure  you  are  competent  to  perform.  I  remember  that  Presi- 
dent Buchanan,  the  day  before  he  left  London  on  his  return  to 
America,  in  the  course  of  a  conversation  over  the  tea-table, 
remarked :  *  I  leave  England  with  the  conviction  that  you  are  not 
yet  able  to  govern  yourselves  without  the  aid  of  your  aristocracy.' 
There  are  things  to  be  done  which  you  and  I  could  make  a 
so-called  Liberal  government  do,  if  we  were  out  of  the  Cabinet, 
without  being  held  ineligible  by  the  Court  and  Aristocracy  {with 
whom  the  most  jpoioerful  part  of  the  middle  class  vjill  he  found 
sympathizing)  to  enter  it,  owing  to  any  extreme  democratic  de- 
signs. But  we  are  comparatively  powerless  if  we  can  be  assumed 
to  be  excluded  from  the  government  by  either  our  own  will,  or 
that  of  the  ruling  class,  owing  to  our  entertaining  revolutionary 
or  fundamentally  subversive  doctrines.  One  great  object  which 
I  should  like  to  force  our  rulers,  much  against  their  will,  to 
accomplish,  is  the  limitation  of  our  armed  force,  in  relation  to 
tliat  of  France.  And  this  I  will  endeavor  to  promote,  if  I  am 
spared,  and  my  present  task  is  successful,  by  an  appeal  to  the 
French  Government  in  the  same  unofficial  way  as  I  am  now  at 
work  upon  another  affair.  But  T  feel  convinced  that  the  great 
obstacle  would  be  with  our  own  ruling  class. 

"  This  could  only  be  overcome  by  an  honest  party  in  the  House, 
of  which  you  must  be  the  head.  My  talking  days  are,  I  think, 
nearly  over;  I  have  no  confidence  in  my  voice  serving  me  much 
in  future.  I  suffer  no  inconvenience  now ;  but  a  hoarseness 
interposes  if  I  talk  much,  and  I  feel  as  if  half  an  hour's  public 
speaking  would  render  me  inaudible.  '  However,  I  shall  go  to 
Cannes  as  soon  as  this  business  is  decided  one  way  or  another, 
which  must  be  within  a  fortnight.  When  I  speak  of  being  held 
eligible  for  office,  I  merely  refer  to  the  power  which  that  gives  us 
in  the  House.  I  have  no  intention  to  take  office  under  aqy  cir- 
cumstances, because  I  think  I  could  do  more  good  out  of  office. 
Besides,  it  is  too  late,  even  if  I  liked  it.  I  am  in  my  fifty-sixth 
year,  and  do  not  come  of  a  long-lived  parentage. 

35 


646  LIFE  OF  COBDEN.  [1860. 

"  I  thought  of  saying  a  few  words  about  the  state  of  opinion 
here  [Paris],  the  designs  of  the  Emperor,  etcetera.  I  have  no 
prejudice  against  a  voluntary  armed  force  like  the  riflemen  of 
Switzerland,  or  the  militia  of  America,  though  it  is  open  to  ques- 
tion whether  Joseph  Hume  was  right  in  preferring  a  regular 
armed  profession,  on  the  principle  of  the  division  of  labor.  But 
the  origin  of  our  rifle  corps,  just  after  we  had  voted  twenty-six 
millions  for  our  armed  professions,  as  a  means  of  defence,  and 
instigated  by  real  or  pretended  fear  of  France,  is  such  as  to  make 
the  movement  a  disgraceful  act  of  folly  —  speaking  of  the  nation, 
and  not  of  all  the  individuals  who  have  been  drawn  into  it." 


(3.)  To  William  Hargreaves. 

Remarks  on  the  writings  of  Louis  Napoleon, 

"  Cannes,  March  14,  1860.  —  I  have  been  amusing  myself  with 
reading  very  carefully  the  works  of  Louis  Napoleon.  They  are 
published  under  his  own  auspices,  in  four  splendid  volumes,  and 
are  said  to  be  without  the  alteration  of  a  word.  They  have  been 
lent  to  me,  but  if  you  were  in  an  extravagant  humor,  they  might 
be  worth  your  buying.  Besides  the  interest  we  all  have  in  know- 
ing what  has  been  passing  through  such  a  brain  for  the  last 
thirty  years,  the  style  of  his  composition  is  a  model  worth  study- 
ing. Baron  Bunsen,  who  is  here,  tells  me,  apropos  of  his  style, 
that  De  Tocqueville,  who  died  lately  at  Cannes,  and  who  was  no 
friend  of  the  Emperor's,  declared  that  Louis  Napoleon  was  the 
only  man  living  who  could  write  '  monumental  French.'  It  is,  I 
suppose,  the  consciousness  of  the  possession  of  this  talent,  so 
greatly  appreciated  in  France,  which  leads  him  to  come  so  fre- 
quently before  the  public  in  print;  for  if  he  be  taciturn  in  oral 
communications,  the  quality  assuredly  does  not  attach  to  his  pen. 
....  But  when  we  have  praised  his  style,  we  have  expressed 
the  best  that  can  be  said  of  his  volumes.  Most  assuredly  we 
cannot  indorse  all  that  he  says  as  a  political  economist,  as  the 
enclosed  extract  will  show.  There  are  some  curious  historical 
chapters  upon  the  progress  of  artillery,  a  subject  to  which  he 
seems  to  have  devoted  much  study,  and  which  now  possesses 
great  interest.  But  the  chief  charm  of  his  works  is  in  the  absolute 
perfection  of  the  style  of  his  occasional  addresses,  extending  over 
a  series  of  years.  That  one  in  particular  announcing  his  intended 
marriage  as  a  parvenu,  and  giving  his  reasons  for  making  choice 
of  a  private  individual  for  his  wife,  is  the  most  striking  of  all  for 
the  ingenuity  and  boldness  of  his  argument,  and  the  beauty  of  its 
composition.    I  must  say  I  sought  in  vain  for  traces  of  that  spirit 


JiET.  56.]  MISCELLANEOUS   CORRESPONDENCE.  647 

of  vindictiveness  towards  England  which  politicians  of  the  Hors- 
inan  school  tell  us,  with  so  much  solemn  mysteriousness,  pervades 
his  writings.  The  whole  tone  of  his  works  seem  to  me  to  be  so 
singularly  forbearing  and  magnanimous  towards  the  implacable 
and  successful  enemy"  of  his  great  idol,  the  first  Bonaparte ;  he 
treats  the  whole  matter  with  so  much  philosophy  when  referring 
to  the  death  struggle  between  France  and  England,  that  I  wonder 
the  alarmists  and  invasionists  never  discovered  a  plot  in  the  ab- 
sence of  all  passionate  resentment  towards  us,  which  characterizes 
these  volumes." 

The  following  is  the  passage  referred  to :  — 

{CEuvres  de  Napoleon,  Tome  Deuxihne,  p.  234.) 

"  L'Angleterre  a  realise  le  reve  de  certains  econoniistes  modernes  ;  elle  sur- 
passe  toiites  les  autres  nations  dans  le  bon  niarche  de  ses  produits  manufac- 
tures. Mais  cet  avantage,  si  e'en  est  un,  n'a  ete  obtenu  qu'au  prejudice  de  la 
classe  ouvriere.  Le  vil  prix  de  la  marchandise  depend  du  vil  prix  du  travail, 
et  le  vil  prix  du  travail,  c'est  la  misere  du  peuple.  II  ressort  d'une  publication 
recente,  que  pendant  les  dernieres  annees,  tandis  que  I'industrie  Anglaise  tri- 
plait  sa  production,  la  somme  employee  pour  solder  les  ouvriers,  diminuait  dhcn 
tiers.  Elle  a  ete  reduite  de  quinze  millions  k  dix  millions  de  livres  sterling. 
Le  consommateur  a  gagne,  il  est  vrai,  le  tiers  du  salaire  preleve  sur  la  suenr  de 
I'ouvrier  ;  mais  de  Ik  aussi  sont  venus  les  perturbations  et  la  malaise,  qui  ont 
afFecte  profondement  la  prosperite  de  la  Grande  Bretagne.  Si,  en  France,  lea 
partisans  de  la  liberte  du  commerce  osaient  mettre  en  pratique  leurs  funestes 
theories,  la  France  perdrait  en  richesse  une  valeur  d'au  moins  deux  milliards  ; 
deux  millions  d'ouvriers  resteraient  sans  travail,  et  notre  commerce  serait  prive 
du  benefice  qu'il  tire  de  I'immense  quantite  de  matieres  premieres  qui  sont 
importees  pour  alimenter  nos  manufactures.^ 

Fort  de  Ham,  Aout  1842." 


(4.)  To  W.  Har greaves. 

Effect  of  going  to  and  fro  between  London  and  Paris. 

"Paris,  April  23,  1860. — A  curious  influence  is  exerted  on  my 
mind  in  going  to  and  fro  between  London  and  Paris,  which  helps 
to  account  for  what  is  almost  unaccountable.  When  in  England, 
I  find  myself  so  surrounded  with  sayings  and  doings  which  are 
founded  on  the  assumption  of  evil  designs  on  the  part  of  the 
Emperor  towards  England,  that  I  feel,  in  spite  of  myself,  a  little 
infected  with  doubt  as  to  our  safety.  In  fact,  I  breathe  an  at- 
mosphere tainted  with  panic,  and  I  become  affected  by  the  general 
uneasiness.  If  this  be  so  in  my  case,  in  spite  of  my  predilections 
and  my  sane  surroundings,  how  much  more  must  other  people 
be  affected  ?     When  I  come  to  Paris,  and  approach  close  to  the 

*  This  extract  contains  some  very  erroneous  doctrine  as  to  the  effect  of  increasiiig 
trade  on  workmen.     But  it  is  not  necessary  to  discuss  the  matter  here. 


548  LIFE  OE   COBDEN.  [1860. 

imagined  source  of  danger,  all  uneasiness  and  doubt  disappear 
from  my  mind.  In  fact  all  idea  of  England  being  attacked  by 
France  is  founded  on  the  ignorance  of  what  is  going  on  here,  and 
on  the  play  of  the  imagination  when  the  danger  is  afar  off.  PI  ere 
is  an  illustration,  by  the  way,  of  the  advantage  which  will  arise 
from  more  intimate  intercourse  between  the  two  countries." 


(5.)  To  W.  Har greaves. 

The  state  of  Europe. 

"Paris,  May  7,  1860.  —  I  have  given  a  note  of  introduction  to 
you  to  an  old  friend,  Mr.  Dunville,  from  the  neighborhood  of 
Belfast,  who  with  his  mother  and  sister  are  stopping  a  fortnight 
in  London,  on  their  way  from  this  to  Ireland.  They  are  first- 
rate  people  in  our  sense,  and  you  will  be  very  much  pleased  if 
you  pass  an  evening  in  their  society. 

"  We  are  now  beginning  the  labors  of  the  commission.  If  I 
were  to  judge  by  the  progranmie  setting  forth  our  plan  of  pro- 
ceedings, the  task  might  last  a  couple  of  years.  But  I  take  it  for 
granted  that  all  the  intended  inquiries  into  every  article  of  the 
French  tariff  will  very  soon  shape  itself  into  a  rule  of  thumb,  and 
that  the  Government,  which  has  already  all  the  information  at  its 
fingers'  ends,  will  undertake  to  act  on  its  own  responsibility. 
Whatever  may  be  the  result,  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  be  well 
/  abused  for  a  year  or  two.  In  the  end,  after  a  few  years'  trial,  the 
^  Treaty  will  justify  itself  This  assumes  that  we  remain  at  peace, 
which  the  Times  and  its  patrons  seem  bent  on  preventing. 

**  The  state  of  Germany  is  very  unsatisfactory.  Enormous  sums 
!  are  being  wasted  by  a  very  poor  people  in  preparations  for  war. 
I  There  is  a  great  uneasiness  both  with  respect  to  their  internal  and 
'  external  relations.  The  worst  of  it  is  that,  as  I  learn,  influential 
politicians  in  Prussia  are  beginning  to  hold  this  language :  '  We 
must  have  a  war  with  France  sooner  or  later,  and  it  is  the  only 
w^ay  in  which  we  can  get  rid  of  our  internal  discords,  and  swamp 
the  small  States  under  the  Eule  of  Prussia.'  These  people  say : 
*  We  should  be  beaten  back  by  France  at  the  first  shock,  but  we 
should  recover  everything  wnth  interest.'  My  belief  is,  that  at  this 
moment  Louis  Napoleon  is  about  the  most  peaceable  person  in 
Europe.  Everybody  in  France  is  well  satisfied  with  the  Savoy 
business,  and  the  Emperor  was  never  so  popular.  But  he  knows 
that  he  is  mistrusted  by  all  Europe,  and  that  it  would  be  danger- 
ous to  attempt  any  fresh  extension  of  his  boundaries.  However, 
it  must  not  be  supposed  that  he  lias  any  love  for  the  present  ter- 
ritorial arrangements  in  Europe.    There  is  no  doubt  that  he  Would 


^T.  56.]  MISCELLANEOUS   CORRESPONDENCE.  549 

like  to  give  Mr.  Wyld  an  excuse  for  publishing  another  map  of 
France.  But  he  would  not  like  it  at  the  expense  of  a  war  with 
England. 

"  I  am  not  very  proud  of  the  spectacle  presented  by  our  mer- 
chants, brokers,  and  M.  P.'s,  in  their  ovations  to  the  pugilist 
Sayers.  This  comes  from  the  brutal  instincts  having  been  so  sed- 
ulously cultivated  by  our  wars  in  the  Crimea,  and  especially  in 
India  and  China.  I  have  always  dreaded  that  our  national  cliar- 
acter  would  undergo  deterioration  (as  did  that  of  Greece  and 
Rome)  by  our  contact  with  Asia.  With  another  war 'or  two  in 
India  and  China,  the  English  people  would  have  an  appetite  for 
bull-fights,  if  not  for  gladiators." 

(6.)  To  W.  Hargreaves. 

Two  Reasons  against  Political  Despondency. 

"  June  5,  1860.  —  I  am  sorry  to  see  that  you  have  been  laid  up. 
Depend  on  it,  you  overdo  the  work  in  proportion  to  your  forces. 
Don't  let  public  matters  worry  you.  Why  should  you  ?  What- 
ever evils  befall  the  country,  you  at  least,  in  proportion  to  your 
str.ength,  have  done  more  than  your  share  to  prevent  them.  There 
are  two  things  which  we  must  always  bear  in  mind  when  we  grow 
impatient  or  desponding.  How  much  has  been  done  before  us: 
how  many  will  come  after  us  to  do  what  remains  to  be  done."  ^ 


(7.)  To  Mr.  Bright 

In  1860  violent  disturbances  broke  out  among  the  Christian  population  of 
Syria.  They  were  followed  by  the  despatch  of  a  force  of  occupation  from  the 
European  powers,  and  a  commissioner  was  appointed  for  the  reorganization  of 
Syria.  The  discussion  in  the  spring  of  1861,  between  the  French  and  English 
Governments,  turned  on  the  continuance  of  the  European  occupation. 

"Algiers,  ISth  March,  1861.  —  From  what  I  hear  from  Paris, 
the  two  Governments  are  wrangling  over  Syrian  matters.  After 
what  I  saw  of  the  spirit  of  the  Foreign  Office,  it  is  always  a  source 
of  wonder  to  me  how  any  business  in  which  the  two  Governments 
are  concerned  ever  comes  to  an  issue,  and  how  they  escape  for  six 
months  from  a  rupture.  For  recollect,  it  is  not  merely  Lord  John's 
lecturing,  but  the  ill-conditioned  temper  of  and  the  subor- 
dinates with  whom  the  details  of  the  negotiations  rest,  that  has  to 

1  On  the  other  hand,  on  July  16,  1860,  writing  to  a  friend  on  the  agitation 
kindled  by  the  action  of  the  House  of  Lords  against  the  repeal  of  the  Paper  Duties, 
Cobden  said: —  "  What  strikes  me  in  all  these  movements  is  the  absence  of  new 
men.  The  good  old  veterans  of  the  League  turn  up,  but  where  are  the  young  poli- 
ticians ? " 


Sr50'  LIFE   OF   COBDEN".  [18&1. 

be  borne  by  the  French  Government.  No  one  can  defend,  on 
principle,  the  French  intervention  in  Syria.  But  our  Government 
violates  the  principle  of  non-intsrvention  towards  the  Turk  every 
day ;  and  every  statesman  in  Europe,  with  the  sole  exception  of 
Palmerston,  recognizes  the  unavoidable  fall  of  Ottoman  rule  at  an 
early  day,  and  the  necessity  of  providing  or  recognizing  some  other 
mode  of  governing  Turkey.  Our  Government  alone  now  contends 
for  the  integrity  of  that  ghastly  phantom,  the  Ottoman  Porte,  at 
the  same  time  that  it  lends  its  sanction  by  conferences  at  Paris, 
and  commissions  in  Syria  and  Constantinople,  to  the  violation  of 
the  rights  of  the  Sultan's  sovereignty.  It  is  only  when  it  is  con- 
venient for  a  topic  for  a  diplomatic  wrangle  with  Eussia  and 
France,  or  to  reconcile  the  British  public  to  a  war,  that  the  Sublime 
Porte  is  paraded  as  an  independent  Power,  whose  sovereign  rights 
are  to  be  treated  with  respect.  Is  there  no  way  of  bringing  mat- 
ters to  a  different  attitude  ?  In  my  opinion  nothing  can  be  so 
dangerous  as  the  present  mode  of  treating  the  Turkish  question, 
Either  we  ought  to  apply  the  same  principle  as  in  Italy  —  viz. 
allow  the  races  of  the  same  language  and  religion  to  join  in  putting 
down  a  foreign  domination  —  or  else  to  interfere  to  some  final  pur- 
|)ose.  If  the  Great  Powers  will  allow  the  Greeks  outside  of  the 
present  Turkish  Empire  to  give  their  fellow-countrymen,  or  at 
least  their  co-religionists  of  the  same  language  and  race,  material 
aid,  they  will  soon  succeed,  with  the  aid  of  the  other  Cliristian 
sects,  in  driving  the  Turks  beyond  the  Bosphorus,  and  ere  long  in 
securing  possession  of  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor  and  Syria.  And 
w^hy  should  this  not  be  permitted  by  those  who  are  so  warm  in 
their  support  of  Garibaldi,  who  sallied  forth  from  Nice  with  no 
better  title  to  overturn  the  Neapolitan  Government  than  the 
people  of  Athens  or  Syria  would  possess  to  drive  the  Turks  from 
their  less  justifiable  domination  in  Constantinople  ?  In  fact,  the 
foreigner  has  practically  ruled  Italy  longer  than  the  Osmanlis  have 
possessed  the  ancient  capital  of  the  Greeks.  But  if  England  is  not 
prepared  to  allow  the  Christians  to  drive  out  their  Mahometan 
rulers,  what  is  she  prepared  to  do  ?  Surely  it  becomes  a  great 
country  to  have  a  policy  which  lifts  its  diplomacy  out  of  the  reach 
of  mere  intrigue  and  endless  altercation  and  gossip,  such  as  char- 
acterizes our  present  abortive  proceedings  on  the  Turkish  question. 
The  way  in  which  we  tolerate,  nay  perpetuate,  the  hideous  evils 
of  the  Sultan's  Government,  heccnise  it  is  not  convenient  to  our  poli- 
ticians to  bring  the  Eastern  Question  to  an  issue  —  the  way  in  fact 
in  which  we  prevent  a  body  from  dying  which  is  no  longer  able 
to  live,  and  look  on  complacently  whilst  millions  of  intelligent 
beings  are  suffering  from  contact  with  this  despotism,  tends  to 
degrade  Englishmen  in  the  eyes  of  foreign  nations,  presenting  us 
in  the  light  of  a  selfish  and  unsympathizing  people. 


iET.56.]  MISCELLANEOUS   CORRESPONDENCE.  551 

"  There  are  a  couple  of  volumes  of  De  Tocqueville's  corre- 
spondence and  remains  lately  published,  and  in  his  letters  to 
Senior  and  other  English  friends  (which  are  full  of  interest),  htf 
alludes  very  delicately  to  the  little  sympathy  felt  for  us  in  our 
Indian  troubles  by  the  nations  of  the  Continent,  and  attributes  it 
to  the  general  impression  that  prevails  (and  which  he  says  is  not 
quite  unfounded),  that  the  English  people  make  their  foreign 
policy  entirely  subservient  to  their  own  narrow  interests." 

(8.)  To  Samuel  Lucas. 

The  Syrian  Massacres  —  French  Intervention. 

"Paris,  August  16,  1860.  —  I  am  disappointed  that  more  is  not 
said  and  done  to  create  sympathy  for  the  many  thousand  homeless 
widows  and  orphans  in  Syria.  So  great  a  calamity,  so  near  to 
our  doors  by  steam  and  telegram,  ought  to  excite  more  compassion. 
Pray  advocate  subscriptions  to  relieve  the  sufferers.  Money  is 
really  the  form  in  which  intervention  is  most  needed,  though  I 
would  not  say  a  word  in  opposition  to  French  succor  in  a  more 
potent  form.  How  are  the  guilty  to  be  punished,  or  those  sold 
into  captivity  to  be  recovered,  unless  an  European  armed  force 
appear  on  the  scene  ?  The  Turkish  soldiers  cannot  be  depended 
on,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  are  not  paid." 

(9.)    To  Mr.  Bright. 

Free  Trade  could  only  have  been  carried  while  the  Nation  was  in  a  sober 

mood. 

"To  my  eye,  from  this  distance,  there  seems  a  strange  con- 
tempt of  sober  domestic  politics  among  the  English  people.  They  v 
have  heen  biases  by  wars  in  India  and  the  Crimea  and  by  the 
great  events  of  the  Continent,  and  are  like  people  who  have  drunk 
to  excess,  or  eaten  nothing  but  spiced  meats,  and  cannot  relish 
anything  less  exciting.  I  have  often  thought  how  lucky  we  wer©- 
that,  when  struggling  for  Free  Trade  in  corn,  the  Continent  was. 
slumbering  under  Louis  Philippe's  soporific  reign,  and  that  we  had\/ 
to  deal  with  statesmen  like  Peel  and  Lord  Aberdeen,  who  were 
too  honest  and  sedate  to  get  up  a  war  or  foreign  complications  to 
divert  attention  from  home  grievances.  Think  how  impossil)le  it 
would  be  in  these  times  to  keep  public  attention  for  seven  yeai-s 
to  one  domestic  grievance.  Why,  Garibaldi  would  draw  off  the 
eyes  of  the  country  from  any  agitation  you  could  raise  in  our 
day !  The  concentrated  earnestness  with  which  political  parties 
were  at  work  in  the  United  States,  inspired  me  with  full  faith 


652  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1860. 

that  the  people  of  the  country  would,  in  spite  of  the  difficulties 
and  dangers  of  their  political  issues,  work  out  their  salvation.  If 
I  had  found  them  engaged  in  settling  the  affairs  of  the  whole 
world,  instead  of  their  own,  I  should  have  despaired." 


(10.)  To  William  liar  greaves. 

Annexation  of  Savoy. 

"  "  I  should  like  to  know  what  practical  result  is  likely  to  follow 
from  our  Foreign  Minister  persevering  in  borrowing  the  tone  of 
Mr.  Kinglake  and  Sir  Robert  Peel  in  his  despatches  to  the  French 
Government.  The  annexation  of  Savoy  to  France  is  a  '  fait  ac- 
compli.' The  bargain  has  pleased  Piedmont,  the  Savoyards,  and 
the  French  people,  the  only  parties  really  interested ;  and  why, 
instead  of  the  snarling,  dissatisfied  tone  in  which  our  Foreign 
Minister  persists  in  treating  the  matter,  cannot  he  dismiss  it  with 
a  little  of  the  dignity  with  which  the  Russian  or  Austrian  Gov- 
ernment has  got  rid  of  the  disagreeable  affair.  There  is  nothing 
so  unworthy  of  a  nation,  or  even  of  a  man,  as  a  tone  of  dissatisfied 
criticism,  which  leaves  no  after  resource  but  a  fit  of  pouting  and 
sulking.  It  is  a  style  of  controversy  fit  only  for  the  nursery.  I 
should  like  to  know  whether  the  correspondence  now  going  on 
between  our  Foreign  Office  and  the  American  Government  upon 
the  subject  of  the  island  of  St.  Juan,  is  conducted  in  the  same 
captious,  irritating  tone  as  that  which  has  characterized  some  of 
our  recent  despatches  to  France,  Austria,  and  Naples.  If  so,  the 
train  is  being  laid  for  either  a  war  or  a  great  humiliation." 


(11.)  To  William  Hargreaves, 

Hopelessness  of  our  rule  in  India. 

''Paris,  August  4, 1860.  —  To  confess  the  truth  I  have  no  heart 
for  discussing  any  of  the  details  of  Indian  management,  for  I  look 
on  our  rule  there  as  a  whole  with  an  eye  of  despair.  Whether 
you  put  a  screen  before  your  eyes  and  call  it  a  local  army,  or 
wliether  you  bring  the  management  face  to  face  in  London,  the 
fact  is  still  the  same.  The  English  people  in  Parliament  have 
undertaken  to  be  responsible  for  governing  one  hundred  and  fifty 
millions  of  people,  despotically,  in  India.  They  have  adopted  the 
principle  of  a  military  despotism,  and  I  have  no  faith  in  such  an 
undertaking  being  anything  but  a  calamity  and  a  curse  to  the 
people  of  England.  Ultimately,  of  course,  nature  will  assert  the 
supremacy  of  her  laws,  and  the  white  skins  will  withdraw  to  their 


iEx.  56.]  MISCELLANEOUS   CORRESPONDENCE.  553 

own  latitudes,  leaving  the  Hindoos  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  cli- 
mate to  which  their  complexion  is  suited.  In  the  mean  time  we 
shall  suffer  all  kinds  of  trouble,  loss,  and  disgrace.  Every  year 
will  witness  an  increased  drain  of  men  and  money  to  meet  the 
loss  entailed  on  us.  In  the  mean  time,  too,  an  artificial  expansion 
of  our  exports  growing  out  of  government  expenditure  in  India 
will  delude  us  as  to  the  value  of  our  '  possessions '  in  the  East,  and 
the  pride  of  territorial  greatness  will  prevent  our  loosening  our 
hold  upon  them.  Is  it  not  just  possible  that  we  may  become  cor- 
rupted at  home  by  the  reaction  of  arbitrary  political  maxims  in 
the  East  upon  our  domestic  politics,  just  as  Greece  and  Eome 
were  demoralized  by  their  contact  with  Asia  ?  But  I  am  wander- 
ing into  the  regions  of  the  remote  future.  It  is,  however,  from  an 
abiding  conviction  in  my  mind  that  we  have  entered  upon  an  im- 
possible and  hopeless  career  in  India,  that  I  can  never  bring  my 
mind  to  take  an  interest  in  the  details  of  its  government." 


(12.)    To  HeMTij  Ashivorth. 

The  War  in  China. 

"  Paris,  August  27,1860.  —  *  *  *  *  I  have  been  watching 
with  interest  the  course  of  events  in  China,  where  it  seems  we 
are  performing  the  double  and  rather  inconsistent  task  of  aiding 
the  rebellion  in  the  interior  and  putting  it  down  on  the  coast !  It 
is  well  known  that  by  our  wars  with  the  Chinese,  —  by  paralyzing 
the  central  government  and  destroying  its  prestige  with  its  peo- 
ple,—  we  help  the  rebels  in  their  work  of  confusion  and  slaughter. 
But  on  their  approach  to  Shanghai  we  are,  it  seems,  to  help  the 
Government  to  resist  the  insurgents.  But  of  what  use  will  the 
seaports  be  if  the  interior  of  the  empire,  where  silk  and  tea  are 
grown,  is  to  be  given  up  to  pillage  and  anarchy  ?  Think  of  the 
Americans  coming  to  let  loose  fire  and  slaughter  in  Lancashire 
and  Yorkshire,  but  setting  up  at  the  same  time  as  the  protectors  of 
Liverpool  !  Where  is  all  this  folly  and  wickedness  to  end  ?  Shall 
we  ever  learn  to  live  at  peace  and  be  content  with  the  honest 
possessions  with  which  God  has  so  bountifully  blessed  our  island  ? 
Unfortunately,  we  have  a  class  —  and  that  the  most  influential 
one  —  which  makes  money  out  of  these  distant  wars,  or  these 
home  panics  about  a  French  invasion.  How  could  your  aristoc- 
racy endure  without  this  expenditure  for  wars  and  armaments  ? 
Could  not  a  less  worthy  and  inliuman  method  of  supporting  them 
be  hit  upon  ?  When  I  am  talking  over  tlie  reduction  of  duties 
with  M.  Rouher,  and  we  come  to  some  small  industry  employing 
a  few  hands  and  a  little  capital,  which  has  put  in  its  claim  for 


554  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1861. 

high  protection,  I  am  in  the  habit  of  suggesting  to  him  that  rather 
than  interfere  with  the  trade  of  the  country  for  the  purpose  of 
feeding  and  clothing  these  small  protected  interests,  he  had  better 
withdraw  the  parties  from  their  unprofitable  occupations,  take 
some  handsome  apartments  for  them  in  the  Louvre  Hotel,  and 
feast  them  on  venison  and  champagne  at  the  country's  expense 
for  the  rest  of  their  days.  Might  not  a  similar  compromise  be 
entered  into  with  the  younger  sons  of  our  aristocracy,  instead  of 
supporting  them  by  the  most  costly  of  all  processes,  that  of  war 
or  preparation  for  war  ?"**** 


(13.)   To  Samuel  Lucas. 

Anti-social  interest  of  great  Producers. 

"Paris,  1860.  —  I  looked  in  yesterday  at  Galignani's  reading- 
room  (where  I  had  not  been  before)  to  glance  at  the  papers.  They 
are  of  course  all  high-priced,  and  not  one  word  was  said  in  any 
one  of  them,  weekly,  daily,  or  provincial,  upon  the  subject  in 
question.  This  very  conspiracy  to  ignore  the  question  of  the 
paper  duty  ought  to  be  the  most  conclusive  argument  in  favor  of 
its  repeal.  It  proves  that  the  high-priced  papers  have  an  interest 
opposed  to  that  of  the  public.  1  remember,  when  Lord  Althorp 
was  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  being  one  of  a  deputation  of 
calico-printers  urging  on  the  Government  the  repeal  of  the  excise 
duty  on  prints.  In  the  course  of  the  conversation  it  was  re- 
marked that  some  of  the  largest  printers  were  opposed  to  the 
movement,  on  which  Lord  Althorp,  with  that  instinctive  good 
sense  which  characterized  him,  observed :  '  That  is  in  my  opinion 
one  of  the  strongest  possible  arguments  in  your  favor,  for  it  is 
evident,  if  the  great  calico-printers  are  in  favor  of  the  tax,  that 
their  interest  cannot  be  the  public  interest.'  '\ 

(14.)   To  Samuel  Lucas. 

Politics  in  the  Counties. 

"Algiers,  2M  February,  1861.  —  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose, 
because  there  are  no  contests  in  the  counties,  and  because  a  few 
nobles  or  proprietors  settle  the  candidatures  and  the  returns  in 
every  case,  that  there  is  no  political  spirit  in  our  provincial  towns 
and  villages.  There  is  more  healthy  radicalism  to  be  found 
scattered  about  our  small  towns  and  villages  than  in  the  larger 
boroughs.  I  mean  that  it  is  a  more  sturdy  kind  of  democratic 
sentiment,  for  it  goes  directly  against  the  feudal  domination  under 


jEt.57.]  miscellaneous  CORRESPONDENCE.  555 

which  we  really  live,  whereas  in  the  great  towns  radicalism  often 
misses  its  mark  and  is  assailing  some  insignificant  grievance.  If 
you  can  see  your  way  for  carrying  out  this  idea,  I  would  take 
some  apropos  occasion  for  announcing  ^  the  intention  to  *  open  up,' 
as  we  say  of  China,  the  politics  of  our  counties.  You  would  tlien 
have  volunteers  aiding  you  with  information.  Let  it  be  seen  who 
are  the  men  who  really  return  the  county  members.  Show  how 
absolutely  the  5  to  10,000  registered  electors  are  ignored  in  the 
choice  of  their  representatives.  No  meetings  to  discuss  the  ques- 
tion, no  contests,  not  even  a  newspaper  controversy,  to  decide  the 
merits  of  candidates  who  are  generally  totally  unknown  by  any 
political  antecedents.  Challenge  a  comparison  between  the  mode 
of  doing  these  things  in  the  counties  and  the  large  boroughs,  as 
well  as  between  the  merits  of  the  knights  of  the  shire,  and  the 
burgftsses  returned  to  Parliament." 


(15.)  To  William  Har greaves. 
Life  in  Algiers  —  The  English  Working  Class. 

"Algiers,  1st  March,  1861.  —  The  weather  here  continues  all 
that  could  be  possibly  desired.  The  scenery  around  Algiers  for 
walking  or  horse  exercise  is  remarkably  beautiful.  It  is  threaded 
with  foot-paths  and  Arab  tracks  in  all  directions,  presenting  a  great 
variety  of  views.  I  have  hardly  ever  seen  a  city  possessing  such 
resources  in  its  neighborhood.  We  have  a  clear  sky  generally,  or 
with  only  a  few  clouds  to  break  the  monotony.  Very  seldom  any 
rain.  It  is  very  hot  in  the  sun's  rays.  A  thermometer  on  a  table 
in  front  of  the  house  stood  the  other  day  at  95.    But  in  the  shade 

it  is  quite  different This  difference  between  the  sun  and 

shade  makes  it  difficult  to  avoid  getting  a  chill.  It  is  this,  too, 
that  prevents  vegetation  coming  on  before  its  time  ;  for  although 
we  have  green  peas  and  flowers  in  abundance,  and  the  almond- 
trees  and  others  are  showing  young  fruit,  yet  the  vines  and  other 
trees  have  not  yet  begun  to  shoot.  You  must  not,  however,  sup- 
pose from  this  that  the  niglits  are  cold.  Such  a  thing  as  a  white 
frost  is  not  known.  Fogs  are  equally  unknown.  If  called  on  to 
say,  I  should  be  of  opinion  that  the  air  is  too  sharp  and  clear  for 
active  consumptive  cases.  But  for  a  person  without  organic- 
disease,  but  with  a  tendency  to  asthma  or  pulmonary  weakness, 
I  should  consider  it  excellent. 

"  My  friends  advise  me  to  remain  till  after  Easter,  which  hap- 
pens very  early  this  year,  and  I  think  I  shall  do  so.     There  is 

1  Mr.  Lucas  was  now  Editor  of  the  Morning  Star. 


556  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1861. 

certainly  nothing  in  the  House  to  tempt  one  to  return.  The  tone 
of  the  leading,  or  rather  misleading,  members  is  just  of  that  hollow 
mocking  kind  which  would  worry  me  into  bad  health.  I  wonder 
the  working  people  are  so  quiet  under  the  taunts  and  insults 
offered  them.  Have  they  no  Spartacus  among  them  to  head  a 
revolt  of  the  slave  class  against  their  political  tormentors  ?  I 
suppose  it  is  the  reaction  from  the  follies  of  Chartism,  which  keeps 
the  present  generation  so  quiet.  However,  it  is  certain  that  so 
long  as  five  millions  of  men  are  silent  under  their  disabilities, 
it  is  quite  impossible  for  a  few  middle-class  members  of  Parlia- 
ment to  give  them  liberty,  and  this  is  the  language  I  shall  hold 
when  called  on  to  speak  to  them.  It  is  bad  enough  that  we  have 
a  political  machine  which  will  not  move  till  the  people  put  their 
shoulders  to  the  wheel.  But  we  must  face  things  as  they  are,  and 
not  live  in  a  dreamland  of  our  own  creating.  The  middle  class 
have  never  gained  a  step  in  the  political  scale  without  long  labor 
and  agitation  out  of  doors,  and  the  working  people  may  depend 
on  it  they  can  only  rise  by  similar  efforts,  and  the  more  plainly 
they  are  told  so  the  better." 


(16.)  To  J.  Parhes. 

Arles-Dufour — The  Rights  of  Women. 

"Feb,  11,  1860. —  It  is  charming  to  see  him  at  sixty-five  with 
his  heart  still  running  off  with  his  head !  He  would  not  allow 
the  word  '  obey  '  to  be  used  by  women  in  the  marriage  ceremony, 
and  has  other  very  rebellious  notions.  My  doctrine  is  that  in 
proportion  as  physical  force  declines  in  the  world,  and  moral 
V  power  acquires  the  ascendant,  women  will  gain  in  the  scale. 
Christianity  in  its  doctrines,  though  not  yet  coming  up  to  its  own 
standard  in  its  practice,  did  more  than  anything  since  the  world 
began  to  elevate  women.  The  Quakers  have  acted  Christianity, 
and  their  women  have  approached  nearer  to  an  equality  with  the 
other  sex  than  any  of  the  descendants  of  Eve.  I  am  always 
laboring  to  put  down  physical  force,  and  substitute  something 
better,  and  therefore  I  consider  myself  a  fellow-laborer  with  your 
daughter  in  the  cause  of  women's  rights.  And  yet,  strange  to 
»  say,  women  are  the  greatest  favorers  of  soldiering  and  sailoring, 
and  all  that  appertains  to  war." 

It  was  the  6th  of  May  before  Cobden  arrived  in  Paris  on  his 
way  home.  On  the  12th,  he  had  an  audience  of  the  Emperor  at 
the  Tuileries — the  last  interview  that  they  had. 

"May  12.  —  The  Emperor  spoke  upon  the  Turkish  question  and 
the  affairs  of  Syria,  and  seemed  to  regret  the  misunderstandings 


^T.  57.]  PARIS.  557 

which  arose  upon  the  subject  between  himself  and  the  English 
Government.  I  suggested  that  the  two  countries  should  come  to 
a  frank  agreement;  that  neither  of  them  would  take  a  hectare 
of  territory  from  Turkey  in  Europe ;  that  the  same  policy  should 
be  enforced  upon  Eussia  and  Austria ;  that  then  tlie  doctrine  of 
non-intervention  which  had  been  applied  to  Italy,  should  be 
adopted  towards  European  Turkey  ;  that  the  Christians  should 
be  allowed  to  drive  the  Turks  back  into  Asia ;  that  the  Greeks 
had  a  right  to  repossess  themselves  of  their  ancient  capital  of 
Constantinople ;  and  no  foreign  Power  had  a  right  to  stand 
between  them  and  the  recovery  of  their  rights  f^-om  their  Mahom- 
etan conquerors.  He  remarked  that  it  would  be  desirable  to  let 
Austria  have  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  in  exchange  for  Venetia ; 
and  that  it  had  been  the  policy  of  Eussia  to  prevent  the  formation 
of  a  Greek  empire  at  Constantinople.  I  urged  strongly  that  if 
France  and  England  were  to  apply  the  policy  of  non-intervention 
to  Turkey  in  Europe,  and  renounce  all  selfish  objects  tliemselves, 
they  would  be  in  so  strong  a  position  both  morally  and  materially 
as  to  be  able  to  dictate  the  same  course  to  Eussia.  I  urged  the 
necessity  of  abandoning  the  idea  of  sustaining  the  Turks  in  Europe; 
that  the  Christians  in  Turkey  constituted  the  only  element  of 
progress  ;  that  they  possessed  the  wealth,  carried  on  the  commerce, 
and  comprised  the  artists,  professional  men,  &c. ;  that  the  Turks 
did  not  possess  a  single  vessel  engaged  in  foreign  trade  ;  and  that 
all  tlie  commerce  of  the  Black  Sea  and  the  eastern  parts  of  the 
Mediterranean  were  rapidly  falling  into  their  hands  (the  Greeks)  ; 
in  fact,  Turkey  in  Europe,  so  far  as  the  Mahometan  population 
was  concerned,  had  hardly  more  relations  with  the  progress  and 
civilization  of  the  age  than  Timbuctoo  had. 

"  May  14.  —  Called  on  Mdme.  Cornu,  a  lady  who  from  her 
childhood  had  been  the  playmate  and  friend  of  the  Emperor,  and 
who  showed  us  a  couple  of  volumes  of  his  letters  to  her,  the  first 
of  which  was  dated  in  1820,  when  he  was  only  twelve  years  old. 
Several  of  the  letters  were  read  to  us.  They  were  written  in  an 
affectionate  and  sentimental  tone.  She  described  him  as  possess- 
ing a  feminine  softness  of  character,  that  he  always  as  a  boy  was 
very  slow  and  vacillating  in  choosing  any  course  of  action,  but 
that,  when  once  decided,  he  followed  his  bent  with  great  energy. 
She  did  not  regard  him  as  a  genius,  but  as  possessing  great  good 
sense,  with  a  very  amiable  disposition. 

''May  15. — Dined  with  M.  Eouher,  Minister  of  Commerce,  and 
met  a  large  party.  Had  a  conversation  with  the  Minister  of 
Marine,  who  narrated  to  me  the  facts  of  the  explanations  he  had 
had  with  Mr.  Lindsay  respecting  the  force  of  the  two  navies  ;  said 
he  had  invited  Lord  Clarence  Paget  to  come  over  and  inspect 
th6  French  navy  and  ascertain  the  truth  of  the  statement  made 


^/ 


658  LIFE  OF   COBDEN.  [1861. 

by  the  French  Government.  He  (the  Minister  of  Marine)  stated 
that  the  French  did  not  aim  at  an  equality  with  the  English,  but 
merely  to  be  the  first  of  the  second-class  Powers ;  that  they  relied 
on  their  army  and  regarded  their  navy  as  merely  an  accessory, 
whilst  England  trusted  to  her  navy,  and  only  looked  to  her  army 
as  an  accessory.  He  complained  that  England  had  last  year 
greatly  exceeded  the  fair  proportion  which  she  was  accustomed  to 
maintain  in  comparison  with  the  French  navy.  He  told  me  that 
the  Emperor  had  often  spoken  to  him  on  this  subject.  He 
remarked,  also,  that  the  Emperor  had  discussed  with  him  the 
question  whether  he  ought  to  make  additional  outlays  for  his 
navy  and  for  fortifications  to  meet  the  preparations  going  on  in 
England,  and  that  he  (the  Emperor)  had  dismissed  the  subject 
with  the  observation,  *  Let  them  (the  English)  go  on  with  their 
expenditure ;  they  will  find  out  the  uselessness  of  their  policy 
by-and-by.  In  the  mean  time,  I  don't  know  that  it  does  us  any 
harm.'  The  Minister  of  Marine  told  me  that  Lord  Cowley  had 
complained  to  him  that  he  had  given  the  particulars  of  the  amount 
of  the  French  naval  force  to  Mr.  Lindsay,  and  not  to  him ;  the 
Minister  replied  that  it  was  useless  to  give  such  particulars  to 
the  English  Government,  as  they  were  only  misconstrued  and 
misrepresented. " 

On  May  16,  Cobden  left  Paris  for  England.  The  directors 
of  the  railway  placed  a  carriage  gratuitously  at  his  disposal  to 
Dieppe.  A  public  meeting  had  been  held  at  Dover,  at  M-hich  a 
resolution  of  welcome  had  been  passed,  to  be  presented  to  him  on 
landing.  But  he  went  from  Dieppe,  not  to  Dover,  but  to  New- 
haven,  whence  he  proceeded  to  the  old  home  (May  18)  under  the 
Sussex  Downs,  having  seen  the  manners  of  many  men  and  many 
cities,  and  having  done  a  good  and  difficult  stroke  of  work  for 
two  great  countries. 


CHAPTER   XXXIV. 

THE  AMERICAN  WAR  —  FORTIFICATION   SCHEMES  —  INTER- 
NATIONAL  LAW. 

In  one  of  his  last  letters  before  leaving  Algiers,  Cobden  had  writteu 
to  Mr.  Hargreaves  in  rather  a  depressed  vein.  "  The  truth  must  be 
told,"  he  said ;  "  though  one  does  not  like  publicly  to  shelve  one- 
self —  my  work  is  nearly  done.  I  am  nearly  fifty-seven,  and  not, 
like  you,  of  a  long-lived  family.  Since  I  passed  my  meridian  a 
few  years  ago,  I  have  found  my  powers  sensibly  waning,  and  par- 


JSt.  57.]  RETURN   TO   ENGLAND.  659 

ticularly  those  organs  of  the  voice  which  I  exercised  so  rudely 
whilst  in  their  prime,  and  which  were  naturally  but  a  weak  inheri- 
tance from  my  father.  If,  however,  I  could  pass  the  remainder 
of  my  days  with  only  the  labor  of  an  average  person  of  my  years,  ^ 
I  could,  I  dare  say,  nurse  myself  into  a  good  old  age.  The  ques-*^ 
tion  is  whether  I  ought  rather  to  content  myself  with  a  briefer 
span  and  the  satisfaction  of  trying  to  do  something  a  little  beyond 
my  strength  ?  It  is  a  nice  question  for  casuists,  for  the  home 
duties  affecting  one's  young  children  intrude." 

When  Cobden  returned  to  England  his  public  position  had 
more  than  recovered  the  authority  .and  renown  which  had  been 
seriously  impaired  by  his  unpopular  attitude  on  the  Eussian  AVar, 
and  his  devotion  to  the  thankless  questions  of  Retrenchment  and 
Peace.  It  was  felt  that  the  reproach  of  sentimental  statesman- 
ship could  not  well  be  applied  to  a  man  who  had  conducted  so 
tough  and  laborious  an  undertaking  as  the  negotiation  of  a  tariff. 
The  commercial  class  were  compelled  to  forgive  what  they  called 
his  crotchets,  to  one  who  had  opened  for  them  new  channels  of 
wealth.  The  Lord  Mayor  entertained  him  at  a  banquet.  In  the 
H;)U3e  of  Commons  he  received  a  hearty  welcome,  but  a  short 
speech  on  the  repeal  of  the  paper  duty  was  his  only  contribution 
to  its  proceedings  before  the  end  of  the  session.  He  had  never 
even  in  the  darkest  times  lost  the  ear  of  this  assembly.  It  seldom 
refuses  to  listen  to  anybody  who  can  furnish  it  in  moderately  few 
words  with  aptly  chosen  fact,  or  substantial  and  unsophisticated 
argument.  Everybody  understood  that  neither  he  nor  Mr.  Bright 
took  up  a  question  for  the  sake  of  having  a  question.  Their 
subjects  were  put  into  their  minds  by  actual  circumstances  from 
without.  Their  habit,  as  I  think  that  Cobden  himself  said,  was 
only  to  step  out  and  join  the  debate  when  they  saw  that  it  . 
was  passing  their  door.  It  was  always  known  that,  whenever  / 
Cobdeq  spoke,  he  really  sought  to  have  something  done  or  left^ 
undone.  A  speech  with  him  was  a  means  of  accomplishing  some- 
thing, and  always  referred  to  practical  performance  of  some  kind. 
"  You  know,  gentlemen,  I  never  perorate,"  he  sometimes  said  to 
great  meetings  of  his  constituents,  "  and  when  I  have  done,  I  leave 
off,  and  sit  down."  This  aVjstinence  was  in  itself  an  enormous 
recommendation.  Then  as  a  debater,  so  fine  a  judge  as  Mr. 
Disraeli  pronounced  Cobden  to  have  few  equals ;  as  a  logician,  he 
described  him  as  close  and  compact,  adroit,  acute,  and  even  subtle. 
Even  the  politicians  who  most  disliked  whajfc  one  of  them  called 
Boanerges-Liberalism,  found  nothing  to  offend  them  in  a  man 
who  was  never  either  declamatory  or  passionate ;  and  who  never 
lost  sight  of  the  sympathies  of  those  whom  he  addressed.^ 

^  Mr.  George  Hope,  the  well-known  tenant-farmer  (of  Fenton  Barns),  gives  an 
account  in  one  of  his  letters  of  the  way  in  which  Cobden  used  to  be  received  iu  the 


y 


560  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1861. 

Before  the  year  was  over,  events  came  to  pass  which  once  more 
brought  Gobden,  and  perhaps  in  a  still  greater  degree  Mr.  Bright, 
into  an  almost  angrier  conflict  than  before  with  the  same  classes 
and  interests  with  whom  they  had  been  in  strife  from  the  first. 
The  great  civil  war  broke  out  between  the  Northern  and  the 
'Southern  States  of  the  American  Union.  England,  according  to 
its  peculiar  custom,  was  quickly  divided  into  two  vehemently 
opposed  camps.  Once  more  Cobden  found  himself  in  antagonism 
to  Lord  Palmerston,  Lord  Eussell,  the  Times  newspaper,  and  all 
the  other  representatives  of  the  aristocratic  classes,  and  those  who 
imitate  and  feel  with  these  classes. 

As  his  correspondence  shows,  Cobden  did  not  at  first  seize  the 
true  significance  of  the  struggle.  There  were  reasons  why  he 
should  be  slow  to  take  the  side  of  the  North.  One  of  them  was 
that  he  could  not  for  a  time  bear  to  face  the  prospect  that  the 
community  which  had  hitherto  been  the  realization  on  so  great  a 
scale  of  his  pacific  ideals,  should  after  all  plunge  into  war  just  as 
a  monarchy  or  an  oligarchy  might  have  done.  The  North,  by  re- 
fusing to  allow  the  South  to  secede,  seemed  to  him  at  first  to  be 
the  author  of  the  strife.  Another  reason  wliy  his  sympathies 
wavered  was  that  thougli  the  Southerners  were  slaveholders,  their 
interests  made  them  Free  Traders.  As  we  have  seen  more  than 
once,  Cobden  was  always  prone  to  be  led  by  his  sympathies  as 
an  economist.  The  hesitation,  however,  did  not  last  long.  He, 
who  had  converted  so  many  thousands  of  people,  was  in  this  in- 
stance himself  converted  by  Mr.  Bright,  whose  sagacity,  sharpened 
by  his  religious  hatred  of  slavery,  at  once  perceived  that  a  break- 
up of  the  American  Union  would  be  a  damaging  blow  to  the 
cause  of  freedom  all  over  the  world.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
struggle,  they  happened  to  meet  Mr.  Motley  at  breakfast.  With 
a  good  deal  of  liveliness  Cobden  attacked  something  which  Mr. 
Motley  had  been  writing  in  the  newspapers  in  favor  of  the  North - 

House:  —  "  Mr.  Cobden  drove  us  to  the  House  of  Commons,  as  there  was  a  morning 
sitting,  and,  having  put  us  into  the  Speaker's  gallery,  took  his  place  in  the  House. 
The  business  was  the  County  Courts  Bill.  The  Solicitor-General  spoke  long  and 
well,  but  had  to  give  in  as  to  who  should  practise  before  these  courts.  He  (the 
Solicitor-General)  wished  to  confine  it  to  attorneys  and  barristers,  one  of  each. 
After  several  others  spoke,  most  of^hem  in  the  midst  of  much  noise,  Mr.  Cobden 
rose;  at  once  you  might  have  heard  a  pin  fall,  and  in  a  very  few  sentences  he  put 
the  matter  in  a  true  light.  He  said  ....  that  there  was  to  be  no  monopoly,  that 
the  suitor  might  employ  nobody  or  anybody  he  pleased,  and  there  wes  tremendous 
cheering.  Afterwards  Mr.  Cobden  spoke  again,  and  with  the  same  effect.  After  a 
vast  deal  of  talk,  strangers  were  ordered  to  withdraw,  but  no  division  took  place, 
as  the  Government  gave  in,  and  Mr.  Cobden  came  to  us  rejoicing  in  his  victory. 
He  took  us  to  the  House  of  Lords  (where  we  saw  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  some 
othei-s),  and  to  see  the  proceedings  before  a  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
With  Mr.  Smith,  the  Member  for  Dunfermline,  we  went  over  all  the  New  Houses 
of  Parliament.  We  met  with  large  numbers  of  Members,  who  attributed  to  Mr. 
Cobdeu  the  victory  gained."  —  Memoir,  p.  185. 


jEt.57.]  the  AMERICAN  WAK.  561 

ern  case.  As  they  walked  away  down  Piccadilly  together,  Mr. 
Bnght  remonstrated  with  Cobden  on  these  symptoms  of  a  leaning 
towards  the  South.  The  argument  was  continued  and  renewed 
as  other  arguments  had  been  between  them.  The  time  came  for 
Cobden  to  address  his  constituents  at  Eochdale.  "Now,"  said 
Mr.  Bright,  with  a  final  push  of  insistence,  "  this  is  the  moment 
for  you  to  speak  with  a  clear  voice."  Cobden's  vision  by  this 
time  was  no  longer  disturbed  by  economic  or  other  prepossessions, 
and  he  was  henceforth  as  generally  identified  as  Mr.  Bright  with 
su]3port  of  the  Northern  cause. 

The  interest  in  the  conflict  soon  took  a  practical  turn.     The 
circumstances  of   the  war  very  speedily  raised  great  questions 
connected  with  the  maritime  rights  of  belligerents  and  neutrals, 
and  Cobden  threw  himself  energetically  into  a  discussion  which 
was  of  vital  importance  to  Great  Britain.     His  activity  between      y^ 
the  date  of  the  Commercial  Treaty  and  the  time  of  his  death  was  V 
principally  directed  to  two  objects ;  the  improvement  of  interna-J^) 
tional  law  as  it  affects  commerce  in  time  of  war,  and  the  limita-  * >} 
tion  of  expenditure  upon  unneeded  schemes  of  national  defence. 
The  first  and  more  important  of  these  subjects  had  been  brought 
into  a  conspicuous  place  for  public  discussion  by  the  Declaration  of  ,. 
Paris  in  1856.     Free  ships  were  then  declared  to  make  free  goods. ' 
The  merchants  of  a  nation  in  a  state  of  war  were  to  be  free  to^ 
carry  on  their  trade  as  usual,  provided  that  they  should  send  their 
goods  in  the  ships  of  neutral  Powers.     Cobden  carried  this  favor 
to  neutrals  a  great  deal  further,  and  he  explained  his  position  in 
a  carefully  reasoned  letter  to  Mr.  Ashworth,  then  the  Chairman 
of  the  Manchester  Chamber  of  Commerce  (April  10,  1862).^     Not      y 
only,  he  contended,  ought  all  private  property,  that  of  enemies  nOx  / 
less  than  that  of  neutrals,  to  be  exempt  from  capture  at  sea,  but  ^ 
neutral  ships  ought  to  be  exempt  from  right  of  visitation  and 
search,  and,  most  important  of  all,  the  commercial  ports  of  an 
enemy  ought  to  be  exempt  from  blockade.     Cobden's  defence  of 
this  transformation  of  what  he  called  the  old  barbarous  code  of 
international  maritime  law,  rested  not  merely,  or  even  not  at  all, 
on  the  claims  of  natural  justice,  but  on  the  special  requirements 
of  our  own  country.     A  population  circumstanced  as  ours  is  in 
respect  both  of  its  food  and  of  the  raw  materials  of  its  industry,  is  \^ 
interested  beyond  all  others  in  removing  every  regulation  wliicli 
interferes  with  the  free  circulation  of  the   necessaries   of  life, 
whether  in  time  of  peace  or  war.     Why  should  *we  persist,  he 
asked,  in  upholding  a  belligerent  right  which  we  have  always 
shrunk  from  enforcing,  and  shall  never  rigorously  apply,  by  which 
we  place  in  the  hands  of  other  belligerents  the  power  at  any 

^  Published  in  his  Collected  Writings,  ii.  pp.  5  -  22.     The  three  changes  which 
he  there  proposes  are  those  enumerated  in  the  letter  to  Mr.  Paulton,  below,  p.  576. 

86 


562     ■  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1862. 

moment  of  depriving  a  large  part  of  our  population  of  the  supply 
of  the  raw  materials  of  their  industry  and  of  the  necessaries  of 
life  ?  The  Cotton  Famine  in  Lancashire,  caused  by  the  blockade 
of  the  Southern  ports  of  the  United  States,  gave  to  these  views  a 
painful  appositeness,  and  Cobden  pressed  the  arguments  of  his 
letter  to  Mr.  Ashworth  still  more  forcibly  and  with  a  greater 
breadth  of  illustration  in  an  address  to  the  Manchester  Chamber 
of  Commerce  in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year.^ 

In  the  course  of  1862  Cobden  made  one  of  his  most  determined 
and  systematic  onslaughts  upon  Lord  Palmerston's  policy  of 
national  defence.  He  carried  on  very  effiective  skirmishing  during 
the  session,  until  at  the  close  of  it  (Aug.  1),  as  an  eyewitness 
describes  it,  they  engaged  in  a  regular  single  combat.^  The 
House  was  thin,  the  conclusion  was  foregone,  and  no  effect  fol- 
lowed from  Cobden's  undaunted  perseverance.  Perhaps  more  was 
done  by  a  pamphlet  which  he  published  earlier  in  the  same  year, 
The  Three  Panics,  a  strenuous  and  humiliating  narrative  of  the 
incoherent  alarms  of  invasion  which  had  seized  successive  Gov- 
ernments in  1848,  in  1853,  and  in  1862.^  Mr.  Gladstone  thought 
that  the  narrative  laid  more  than  the  full  share  of  blame  upon 
Governments  and  Parliament,  and  that  it  was  unjust  to  let  the 
general  public  go  scot-free.  He  told  Cobden  a  story  of  a  large 
farmer  whom  he  had  canvassed  in  the  general  election  of  1857. 
He  exclaimed  to  the  farmer  against  the  amount  of  the  military 
and  naval  charges.  "  Well,  sir,"  the  voter  said,  "  we  want  to  be 
defended ; "  and  no  impression  was  to  be  made  upon  him.  In 
truth,  as  Mr.  Gladstone  put  it,  there  was  a  residuum  of  excitement 
standing  over  from  the  Kussian  war  which  had  nourished  all  the 
subsequent  alarm.  Nor  was  it  to  be  denied,  either,  that  the  world 
had  become  more  volcanic  since  the  days  to  which  Cobden  re- 
ferred. It  was  in  vain  that  he  quoted  Peel's  excellent  practical 
maxim,  that  in  time  of  peace  "  you  must  consent  to  incur  some 

1  Speeches,  ii.  279.     Oct.  25,  1862. 

2  "There  they  stood,"  said  Mr.  Grant  Duff,  "unreconciled  and  irreconcilable, — 
the  representatives  of  two  widely  different  epochs,  and  of  two  widely  different  types 
of  English  life.  The  one  trained  in  the  elegant  but  superficial  culture  which  was 
usual  among  the  young  men  of  his  position  in  life  at  the  beginning  of  this  century, 
full  of  pluck,  full  of  intelligence,  but  disinclined,  alike  by  the  character  of  his  mind 
and  by  the  habit  of  official  life  from  indulging  in  political  speculation,  or  ]nirsuing 
long  trains  of  thought  ;  yet  yielding  to  no  man  in  application,  in  the  quickness  of 
his  judgment,  in  knowledge  of  a  statesman's  business,  and  in  the  power  of  eulisting 
the  support  of  what  has  been  truly  called  *  that  floating  mass  which  in  all  countries 
and  all  time  has  always  decided  all  questions.'  The  other  derived  from  nature  finer 
powers  of  mind,  but  many  years  passed  away  before  he  could  employ  his  great 
abilities  in  a  field  sufficiently  wide  for  them.  There  he  stood,  an  admirable  repre- 
sentative of  the  best  section  of  the  class  to  which  he  belongs,  full  of  large  and  phi- 
lanthropic hopes,  and  full  of  confidence  in  his  power  to  realize  them,"  &c.  Mr. 
Grant  Duff's  Elgin  Speeches,  p.  25. — See  his  Speeches,  ii.  257. 

^  Collected  Writings,  vol.  ii. 


iET.  58.]  FORTIFICATION    SCHEMES.  563 

risk  "  (see  above,  p.  357).  There  was  one  risk  which  statesmen 
and  the  public  saw  closer  at  hand,  and  which  they  were  bent  on 
not  incurring  if  they  could  help  it,  and  that  was  risk  from  the 
possible  necessities  of  the  French  Emperor.  On  the  special  issues, 
therefore,  between  himself  and  Lord  Palmerston,  such  as  the  For- 
tification Scheme,  Cobden  made  little  way  in  opinion.  What  he 
did  was  certainly  to  moderate  what  Mr.  Gladstone  called  "  the 
spirit  of  expenditure,"  and  this  according  to  him  was  more  objec- 
tionable and  more  dangerous  than  the  expenditure  itself.^ 

1  The  case  against  Cobden's  view  was  well  put  in  a  letter  addressed  to  him  by 
Lord  John  Russell :  — 

"Pembroke  Lodge,  AjJril  2,  1861. 

"My  dear  Mr.  Cobden, —  The  question  you  raise  in  your  letter  to  me  of  the 
22d  March  is  a  very  serious  one,  and  so  we  must  both  consider  it. 

*'  Lord  Palmerston,  it  appears  from  the  Times,  has  said  that  the  policy  of  France 
has  been  for  a  length  of  time  to  get  up  a  navy  which  shall  be  equal,  if  not  superior, 
to  our  own.  Lord  Palmerston  does  not  complain  of  this  policy,  but  he  says  that  to 
deny  it  is  to  shut  our  eyes  against  notorious  facts,  and  he  defends  a  policy  which  is 
meant  to  provide  for  our  own  security  against  this  notorious  policy  of  France.  As 
to  the  facts,  I  do  not  pretend  to  enter  into  details  of  rival  navy  estimates,  but  I 
will  mention  what  is  notorious.  It  is  notorious  that  two  or  three  years  ago  France 
had  a  number  of  line-of-battle  ships  exceeding  by  one  that  in  the  British  navy.  It 
is  notorious  that  France  is  now  building  a  number  of  iron-cased  ships  more  or  less 
rapidly,  exceeding  that  which  we  are  building.  It  is  notorious  that  having  these 
ships  she  has  between  30,000  and  40,000  seamen,  inscribed  in  a  register,  whom  she 
can  add  to  her  present  number  of  sailors,  which  exceeds  33,000.  Such  being  the 
state  of  facts,  I  will  mention  to  you  that  two  years  ago  I  stated  to  the  Count  de 
Persigny,  then  Ambassador  of  France,  that  our  maritime  strength  was  essential  to 
our  existence  as  a  nation  ;  that  in  1817  Lord  Castlereagh  had  stated  to  a  Select 
Committee  that  Great  Britain  ought  to  have  a  navy  equal  to  the  two  strongest 
navies  in  the  world,  that  the  nation  had  accepted  this  dictum  as  a  practical  maxim 
always  to  be  kept  in  view. 

'*  Acting  on  these  general  views,  we  do  not  care  whether  France  has  or  not 
400,000  soldiers  in  arms,  with  200,000  more  ready  drilled  and  capable  of  joining 
their  colors  in  a  fortnight,  but  we  do  care  when  we  see  her  cherishing,  nursing,  and 
increasing  her  naval  forces.  We  therefore  endeavor  to  provide  a  navy  adequate  to 
maintain  our  character,  our  position,  and  our  safety.  We  are  willing  to  stake  our 
existence  as  a  Ministry  on  the  grant  of  the  number  of  men  for  the  navy  we  have 
asked  for.  I  am  aware  that  the  expense  is  great,  the  burden  is  irksome,  and  that 
the  French  are  irritated  by  our  obstinacy  in  being  determined  to  defend  ourselves. 
Bat  all  these  considerations  yield  to  the  paramount  consideration  of  national 
security. 

"  Upon  this  ground  whenever  you  raise  the  question  we  shall  be  ready  to  stand. 

"Allow me  before  I  close  to  ask  you  to  reflect  on  the  suggestions  which  are  made 
to  you  and  Mr.  Lindsay,  and  not  to  Lord  Cowley,  Col.  Claremont,  and  Commander 
Hove,  by  the  French  Ministers.  These  suggestions  appear  to  me  to  betoken  a 
desire  on  the  part  of  France  to  raise  in  Parliament  an  opposition  to  armaments  of  a 
defensive  character,  in  order  to  insure  French  supremacy.  This  policy  would  not 
be  unnatural,  nor  would  it  be  new.  Lord  Macaulay,  in  giving  an  account  of  the 
instructions  of  Lewis  to  his  Ambassador,  Count  Tallard,  when  he  came  to  England 
after  the  peace  of  Ryswick,  says,  *  In  the  original  draft  of  the  instructions  was  a 
curious  paragraph  wiiich,  on  second  thoughts,  it  was  determined  to  omit.  The 
Ambassador  was  directed  to  take  proper  oppc^i'tunities  of  cautioning  the  English 
against  a  standing  army  as  the  only  thing  which  could  I'eally  be  fatal'  to  their  laws 
and  liberties.' 

"  We  are  very  glad  to  enter  with  the  French  into  improved  commercial  relations, 
and  very  grateful  to  you  for  your  labors  in  this  direction.     But  when  they  advise 


564  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1861. 

He  deplored  the  absence  from  the  scene  of  his  steadfast  ally, 
but  Mr.  Bright  remained  at  Kochdale.  He  told  Cobden  how  he 
admired  his  courage  and  perseverance,  but  he  could  not  imitate  it. 
For  the  moment  he  acknowledged  himself  beaten.  The  fates 
were  against  them  in  the  sliape  of  the  ignorance  and  tlunkyisni 
of  the  middle  classes.  After  the  final  battle  in  Auoust  Mr.  Briolit 
wrote  to  liim  that  he  had  maintained  the  struggle  most  manfully. 
*'  I  have  never,"  he  said,  "  read  speeches  with  more  pleasure  than 
these  in  which  you  have  attempted  to  destroy  the  most  shameless 
imposture  of  our  time.  But  speeches  will  hardly  do  it.  Since 
1854  the  public  have  been  so  thoroughly  demoralized  that  they 
have  become  literally  helpless,  and  I  can  scarcely  conceive  of  an 
event  sufficiently  insulting  and  alarming  to  them  to  excite  them 
to  any  positive  and  united  action.  The  workingmen  have  no 
leaders  of  their  own  class,  and  they  have  no  faith  in  any  others. 
I  wait,  therefore,  for  some  accident  to  bring  about  a  change. 
Possibly  Palmerston's  final  fall,  which  cannot  be  long  postponed, 
may  act  as  an  awakener  throughout  the  country.  Still  I  think 
your  speeches  are  preparing  the  way  for  some  discoveries  on  the 
part  of  our  dim-seeing  people."  This  prophecy  was  fulfilled  to 
the  letter.  Liberalism  remained  stationary  until  Lord  Palmer- 
ston's death,  and  it  was  not  long  after  that  event  that  the  great 
awakening  took  place  which  landed  Mr,  Gladstone  in  power,  with 
Mr.  Bright  himself  for  the  most  popular  and  influential  of  his 
colleai^ues, 

Cobden's  correspondence  during  these  final  years  touches  other 
topics,  but  the  fortunes  of  the  war  in  America,  international  mar- 
itime law,  and  national  expenditure,  were  the  subjects  which  now 
filled  the  largest  space  both  in  his  thoughts  and  in  his  public 
addresses. 

Maritime  Law. 

''April  26,  1861.  {To  Mr.  W.  S.  Lindsay.) —In  your  letter 
upon  maritime  law  in  time  of  war,  you  shirk  the  pinching  point 
of  the  whole  question,  by  omitting  allusion  to  the  fact  that  we 
gave  up  our  old  belligerent  rights  over  neutrals,  not  from  choice 
hut  from  necessity.  It  was  the  attitude  of  the  LTnited  States  at 
the  outbreak  of  the  Russian  War,  which  induced  us  to  suspend 
those  '  rights '  of  search  and  seizure,  the  enforcement  of  which  led 
to  our  last  war  with  America.  And  we  yielded  up  permanently 
those  rights  at  the  Paris  Congress  from  the  same  motives,  namely, 

us  against  arming  for  our  defence,  while  they  do  not  bate  a  jot  of  their  preparations 
military  and  naval,  the  instinct  of  the  British  nation  distrusts  the  friendship  which 
appears  in  so  suspicious  a  guise. 

"I  remain,  yours  very  faithfully, 

"J.  Russell." 


JUT.  57.]  INTERNATIONAL   LAW,  565 

deference  to  the  attitude  of  the  United  States,  though  no  Ameri- 
can plenipotentiary  was  present.  In  fact,  as  you  know,  all  the 
modiiications  in  our  old  arbitrary  navigation  code  had  their  origin 
in  the  rising  power  of  the  United  States  as  a  maritime  people. 

"  Looked  at  in  this  light,  the  question  is  much  more  simple 
than  you  assume  it  to  be,  for  you  put  the  alternative  of  going 
back  to  the  state  of  things  before  the  Paris  Congress,  as  though 
the  consent  of  England  to  that  Congress  were  a  voluntary  choice, 
and  not  an  inevitable  necessity.  Viewed  in  this  manner,  there 
cannot  be  a  doubt  in  any  sane  mind  that  it  is  our  interest  to  go 
on  even  to  the  extent  stipulated  for  by  President  Buchanan  in 
his  late  letter  on  the  subject.  With  the  European  law  as  it  now 
stands,  it  merely  offers  the  carrying  trade  to  the  United  States  in 
case  of  a  war  between  England  and  any  other  maritime  state  suf- 
ficiently powerful  to  keep  a  few  fast  steamers  at  sea.  Anybody 
who  opposes  your  proposal  to  put  England  and  America  on  the 
same  footing  in  case  of  war,  does  not  understand  our  present  sit- 
uation. 

"  P.  S.  The  peace-at-any-price  party  (if  there  be  one)  are  not 
so  much  interested  as  the  war  people  in  putting  us  on  a  par  with 
the  United  States  in  case  of  hostilities  with  a  maritime  power ; 
for  in  the  present  state  of  things  a  war  with  France,  whatever 
might  be  the  ultimate  result,  must  involve  tenfold  sacrifices  to 
England,  as  compared  with  what  would  be  the  case  if  your  plan 
were  acceded  to.  In  fact,  if  France  could  keep  a  few  swift  steam 
corvettes  at  sea,  to  raise  our  sea  insurance  at  Lloyd's  10  per  cent, 
our  ships  would  have  to  transfer  their  registry  to  the  United 
States  or  to  rot  in  our  ports.  It  is  evident  that  the  knowledge  of 
these  facts  must  weigh  with  our  statesmen  to  prevent  them  from 
embarking  in  a  war  with  France.  In  so  far  it  plays  the  game  of  j/ 
the  peace-at-any-price  party,  but  at  the  risk  of  national  humilia- 
tion." 

"July  27,  1861.  (  „  )  —  I  have  read  the  debates  on  the 
iron-cased  ships  in  the  Times.  It  is  important  only  so  far  as  it 
elicited  a  most  able  and  statesmanlike  speech  from  Disraeli, 
which  wdll  bear  fruits.^  ....  You  were  w^rong  in  throwing  over- 

1  The  subject  of  the  discussion  was  the  naval  competition  between  England  and 
France.  Mr.  Disraeli's  point  was  that  there  could  be  no  reason  why  the  two  Gov- 
ernments should  not  come  to  an  undei'standing  as  to  the  relative  proportion  of  the 
naval  forces  to  be  maintained  by  the  two  Powers  ;  and  that  if  the  march  of  science 
compelled  fresh  efforts  to  establisli  adequate  naval  forces,  the  leading  statesmen  of 
each  country  ought  at  least  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  enlighten  the  public  as  to 
the  true  meaning  of  what  Avas  going  on.  Lord  Palmerston,  instead  of  laying  stress 
on  the  revolution  in  naval  affairs,  always  left  people  to  suppose  that  an  iusjine  com- 
petition for  supremacy  at  sea  was  going  on  between  two  rival  relations.  {Hansard, 
clxiv.  1678.)  This  was  only  one  of  several  admirable  speeches  made  by  Mr.  Disraeli 
at  this  time,  which  amply  justified  Cobden's  express  preference  of  him  over  Lord 
Palmerston. 


566  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1861. 

board  your  Paris  authority,  and  giving  in  your  adhesion  to  the 
Secretary  of  the  Admiralty.  There  was  no  necessity  to  contradict 
him  until  you  had  the  disproofs.  But  I  would  have  waited  for 
the  answer  from  the  other  side.  My  maxim  has  been  to  distrust 
the  Treasury  bench  at  all  times,  and  never  admit  myself  wrong  in 
a  controversy  with  the  Government,  until  I  have  better  evidence 
than  their  assertions.  Old  Saddletree's  example  in  1\iq  Heart  of 
Midlothian  is  worth  remembering.  When  hard  pressed  by  an 
opponent  in  an  argument,  who  asked,  '  There,  can  ye  deny  that. 
Master  Saddletree  ? '  he  replied,  '  No  ;  but  I  'm  not  going  to  ad- 
mit it,  neither.' " 

British  Policy  in  China. 

1861.     {To  Mr.  Hargreaves)  — You  will  have  seen  that 


these  articles  generally,  especially  those  in  the  Times,  lay  all  the 
blame  of  their  wars  on  our  commercial  classes,  and  the  cost 
thus  entailed  on  the  country  is  made  a  grievance  on  the  part 
of  the  aristocratic  and  propertied  classes,  on  account  of  the  tax- 
ation which  they  bring  on  the  country.  So  far  as  the  charge 
against  our  merchants  is  concerned,  I  am  afraid  that  many  of  the 
residents  in  China,  especially  the  younger  and  less  exi3erienced 
of  their  number,  as  well  as  those  engaged  in  the  opium  trade 
whether  old  or  young,  have  often  been  active  promoters  of  hostil- 
ities with  that  empire.  As  a  rule  the  Chinese  are  not  a  people 
who  attract  much  sympathy  from  those  who  live  among  them. 
How  could  it  be  otherwise,  when  they  feel  no  sympathy  for 
otliers  ?  '  Like  begets  like.'  But  it  is  very  short-sighted  and 
unphilosophical  conduct  to  try  to  cure  this  ungenial  character- 
istic of  a  people  by  violence  and  injustice,  which  can  only  in- 
crease the  feeling  of  alienation  and  repugnance.  Yet  this  is  the 
receipt  invariably  prescribed  in  our  intercourse  with  the  Chinese 
as  a  cure  for  their  insolence,  by  the  young  merchants;  for  Sir 
George  Bonham,  the  former  Governor  of  Hong  Kong,  draws 
a  distinction  between  the  conduct  of  the  old  and  substantial 
houses  and  the  younger  residents ;  the  latter  are  always  ior 
*  pitching  into  the  Celestials '  by  way  of  making  them  more  civil. 
By  the  way,  I  am  afraid  the  prospect  of  a  sudden  increase  of 
trade,  which  always  follows  a  war  expenditure  for  a  time,  is  not 
without  its  influence  on  these  young  houses,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  enormous  profits  which  have  been  made  out  of  the  claims  for 
compensation  for  losses  of  property  incurred  during  the  war. 
Now  none  of  these  motives  can  have  any  sway  with  the  mer- 
chants and  manufacturers  of  Lancashire,  who  are  the  parties  prin- 
cipally interested  in  a  permanent  trade  with  China.  All  they  can 
desire  is  that  the  duties  shall  be  moderate,  the  trade  regular,  and 
that  facilities  shall  be  afforded  at  the  ports  of  entry  for  the  quick 


^T.  57.]  INTERNATIONAL   LAW.  567 

despatch  of  business.  All  these  conditions  exist  in  China  to  as 
great  an  extent  as  in  any  other  considerable  maritime  states.  In- 
deed, comparing  our  trade  with  China  with  that  with  our  own 
possessions  in  India,  it  seems  likely  that  the  duties  payable  in 
the  former  will  soon  be  the  lighter  of  the  two !  Now  all  this 
leads  me  to  press  on  you  and  the  other  members  of  the  Man- 
chester Chamber  of  Commerce  to  take  some  step  for  the  pro- 
tection of  your  interests  against  the  risk  of  future  collisions 
and  wars  in  that  country.  The  only  way  of  accomplishing' tliis 
is  by  discouraging  the  British  Government  from  entering  into 
closer  diplomatic  relations,  or  forcing  on  that  country  a  resident 
Ambassador  at  Pekin,  or  seeking  for  free  access  for  our  country- 
men to  the  interior  of  that  empire.  The  last  is  a  very  plausible 
but  most  perilous  situation.  The  idea  of  Englishmen  'opening  up 
a  trade'  in  the  interior  of  China  commends  itself  strongly  to  those 
who  do  not  know  how  commerce  is  carried  on.  But  any  one 
acquainted  with  the  trade  of  Russia  or  other  countries  in  a  low 
state  of  civilization,  and  speaking  a  peculiar  and  difficult  lan- 
guage, knows  that  it  is  impossible  for  foreigners  to  carry  on  the 
interior  trade  of  those  countries.  It  must  all  be  left  to  natives. 
There  is  a  proposal  for  carrying  our  productions  in  English  ships 
up  the  great  arterial  river  of  that  country  into  the  interior.  Now 
this  would  be  totally  at  variance  with  all  international  law,  unless 
the  trade  were  confined  to  some  one  or  more  ports  of  entry  to  be 
agreed  upon.  But  once  let  an  English  trading  steamer  find  itself 
600  or  1000  miles  in  the  interior  of  China,  and  how  could  you 
hope  to  prevent  irregular  trade  taking  place  to  be  followed  by 
constant  collisions  with  local  authorities,  who  would,  no  doubt, 
be  exposed  to  a  system  of  bribery  by  which  the  smuggler  would 
only  supersede  the  regular  trader  at  the  ports  ?  Even  the  stipu- 
lation for  foreigners  to  be  allowed  to  penetrate  into  the  country 
by  means  of  passports  is,  in  my  o])inion,  a  policy  of  very  doubt- 
ful wisdom.  Missionaries  will  then,  no  doubt,  avail  themselves 
of  the  facility  for  travelling  in  safety  into  the  country.  I  have 
the  most  profound  veneration  for  those,  who,  like  St.  Paul,  preach 
the  gospel  at  their  own  risk,  trusting  for  their  safety  solely  to  the 
purity  of  their  motives  and  the  overruling  protection  of  God. 
But  it  is  different  when  a  missionary  goes  forth  with  all  the  force 
of  a  powerful  Government  at  his  back ;  in  such  a  case  he  is  likely 
to  do  far  more  injury  than  service  to  the  cause  of  Christianity. 
The  present  war,  so  far  as  the  French  are  concerned,  arose  out  of 
the  alleged  murder  of  a  Roman  Catholic  priest  in  China ;  and  if 
missionaries  are  to  travel  through  that  country  with  passports, 
it  will,  I  fear,  lead  to  as  many  wars  as  conversions.  There  is 
another  point  to  be  considered.  Our  cruisers  on  the  coast  of 
China  are  frequently  capturing  or  destroying  junks,  on  the  plea 


568  LIFE   OP  COBDEN.  [1861. 

that  they  are  pirates.  There  is  a  had  practice  of  paying  head- 
money  for  these  pirates,  taken  or  destroyed.  I  think  there  is  a 
wanton  destruction  of  life  sometimes  committed  without  suffi- 
cient proof  of  the  character  of  the  parties.  In  my  opinion  we 
ought  not  to  undertake  to  perform  the  duties  of  police  on  the 
coast,  unless  to  protect  our  oiun  vessels,  or  at  least  those  of  Euro- 
peanorigin.  In  this  respect  we  ought  to  follow  .the  example  of 
United  States  cruisers  —  watch  over  the  security  of  national 
property,  leave  the  Chinese  to  protect  their  own  shipping.  The 
truth  is,  our  opium  smugglers  and  our  wars  with  the  Government 
of  China  lead  to  a  state  of  carelessness  on  the  coast,  and  we  then 
step  in  to  preserve  the  peace  in  Chinese  waters,  in  consequence  of 
the  impotence  of  the  authorities  to  perform  the  duties  of  police." 

On  Lord  Brougham. 

"  Midhurst,  August  21,  1861.  {To  M.  Chevalier) — I  have  read 
with  much  pleasure  your  address  to  the  Social  Science  Meeting  at 
Dublin.  If  you  have  a  corrected  copy  in  French,  let  me  have 
one.  I  was  amused  at  your  diplomacy  in  comparing  Brougham 
to  Cicero.  This  must  have  delighted  him.  He  has,  I  suspect, 
always  had  the  great  Eoman  in  his  eye,  and  has  sought  to  imitate 
him  in  the  universality  of  his  accomplishments.  But  it  was  one 
thing  to  be  universal  1900  years  ago,  and  is  another  tiling  now. 
A  Bolton  mechanic  who  makes  a  steam-engine,  or  one  who  drives 
a  locomotive  on  our  railways,  knows  more  in  his  special  calling 
than  either  Cicero  or  Brougham.  It  is  this  attempt  at  universality 
which  has  been  the  great  error  and  failing  of  Lord  B.'s  public 
life.  He  has  touched  everything  and  finished  nothing.  Had  he 
given  his  vast  powers  to  one  thing  at  a  time,  he  might  have  codi- 
fied our  laws,  and  endowed  every  village  with  a  good  school,  be- 
sides leaving  nothing  for  me  to  do  in  Free  Trade.  But  he  made 
a  speech  for  five  hours  on  Law  Eeform  forty  years  ago  nearly,  and 
another  as  long  on  National  Education,  and  then  he  left  those 
questions  for  something  else.  The  result  will  be  that  in  fifty 
years  he  will  be  remembered  only  for  his  herculean  mental  pow- 
ers, and  his  unrivalled  intellectual  industry,  but  his  name  will  not 
be  specially  associated  with  any  reforms  for  which  posterity  will 
hold  him  in  grateful  remembrance."^ 


1  Brougham,  as  has  been  seen,  had  been  very  unfriendly  to  the  League  (see  above, 
pp.  175,  176).  For  many  years  there  was  no  communication  between  him  and  Mr. 
Bright.  With  Cobden  he  kept  up  an  occasional  correspondence,  and  in  1856, 
when  Mr.  Bright  was  ill,  Brougham,  says  Cobden  in  a  letter  of  that  date,  "  wrote 
to  me  speaking  in  the  most  affectionate  terms  of  Bright,  and  offering  him  the  uso 
of  his  house  at  Cannes.  I  sent  the  letter  to  Bright,  who  of  course  met  his  ad- 
vances with  open  amis,  and  they  have  been  exchanging  great  civilities.  He  seems 
anxious  to  heal  all  his  ancient  enmities.  Could  a  better  use  be  made  of  his  de- 
clining years  V  —  To  G.  Moffatt.     June  4,  1856. 


^T.57.]  INTERNATIONAL  LAW.  569 

Inconvenience  of  a  Sectarian  Organ. 

"  Midhurst,  Ocidber  17,  1861.  {To  S.  Lucas.)  —  I  said  in  one  of 
my  notes  to  you  that  the  Star  should  not  appear  the  organ  of  a 
sect.  I  will  give  you  an  illustration  a  2')ropos  of  this  remark.  In 
an  otherwise  excellent,  and  tolerant  article  on  Lord  John  yester- 
day, you  bring  in  Bright  and  myself  at  the  close  to  sting  him  by 
our  contrast.  This  is  the  kind  of  reniark  wdiich  stamps  your  paper 
as  the  oro-an  of  a  strait  sect  which  tolerates  nothin<^  but  what  comes 
from  your  own  preachers.  You  remember  the  anecdote  I  gave  you 
of  a  person  I  travelled  with  in  tlie  railway  carriage  from  Guildford 
to  London,  when  he  bought  the  Telegraph  and  I  the  Star.  He 
remarked,  '  I  don't  like  the  Star,  it  is  so  intolerant ;  it  never  ad- 
mits anybody  to  be  right  but  Bright  and  Cobden.'  I  should  like 
to  make  a  bargain  with  you  in  the  interest  of  your  paper,  not  to 
let  my  name  appear  in  your  leaders  (unless  to  find  fault  with  me) 
for  two  years." 

Tocqueville  on  the  Right  of  Secession. 

'^  June  22,  1861.  {To  W.  Har greaves,  Esq)  —  I  am  glad  to  see 
that  as  yet  there  is  no  serious  fighting  in  America.  Until  there 
has  been  a  bloody  collision  one  may  hope  there  will  be  none.  I 
have  been  reading  Tocqueville's  Democracy  in  America.  In  his 
chapter  on  the  influence  of  slavery  his  sagacity  is,  as  it  frequently 
is,  quite  prophetic.  He  seems  to  regard  it  as  the  chief  danger  to 
the  Union,  less  from  the  rival  interests  it  creates,  than  from  the 
incompatibility  of  manners  which  it  produces.  It  is  singular  too 
that  he  takes  the  Southern  view  of  the  right  of  secession.  He 
says,  '  The  Union  was  formed  by  the  voluntary  agreement  of  the 
States ;  and  in  uniting  together  they  have  not  forfeited  their 
nationality,  nor  have  they  been  reduced  to  one  and  the  same  peo- 
ple. If  one  of  the  States  chose  to  withdraw  its  name  from  the 
contract,  it  would  be  difficult  to  disprove  its  right  of  doing  so; 
and  the  Federal  Government  would  have  no  means  of  maintain- 
ing its  claims  either  by  force  or  by  right.'  He  then  goes  on  to 
argue  that  among  the  States  united  by  the  Federal  tie  there  may 
be  some  which  have  a  great  interest  in  maintaining  the  Union 
on  which  their  prosperity  depends ;  and  he  then  remarks,  '  Great 
things  may  then  be  done  in  the  name  of  the  Federal  Government, 
but  in  reality  that  Government  will  Imve  ceased  to  exist.'  Has 
he  not  accurately  anticipated  both  the  fact  and  the  motive  of  the 
present  attitude  of  the  State  of  New  York  ?  Is  it  not  commercial 
gain  and  mercantile  ascendency  which  prompt  their  warlike  zeal 
for  the  Federal  Government  ?  At  all  events,  it  is  a  little  unrea- 
sonable in  the  New  Yol-k  politicians  to  require  vs  to  treat  the 


570  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1861. 

South  as  rebels,  in  the  face  of  the  opinion  of  our  highest  European 
authority  as  to  the  right  of  secession." 


The  Trent  Affair. 

''Midhurst,  Dec.  3,  1861.  {To  Lieut-Col.  Fitzmayer.)  — .  .  .  . 
In  reference  to  our  latest  complication  with  the  United  States,  it 
is,  I  hope,  possible  the  Government  at  Washington  may  disavow 
the  act  of  their  officer.^  If  not,  it  will  I  expect  be  nothing  more 
than  a  diplomatic  and  legal  wrangle.  I  think,  however,  the  Amer- 
ican Government  are  very  foolish  to  take  such  a  course.  I  confess 
I  have  not  much  opinion  of  Seward.  He  is  a  kind  of  American 
Thiers  or  Palmerston  or  Eussell  —  that  talks  to  Bunkum.  Fortu- 
nately, my  friend  Mr.  Charles  Sumner,  who  is  Chairman  of  the 
Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  and  has  really  a  kind  of 
veto  on  the  acts  of  Seward,  is  a  very  peaceable  and  safe  man. 

"  I  look  upon  it  as  quite  impossible  that  the  North  in  addition 
to  their  life  and  death  struggle  at  home  can  desire  a  rupture  with 
this  country.  It  is  to  assume  that  they  are  mad.  Doubtless 
there  are  plenty  of  Irish  and  plenty  of  Southern  sympathizers  in 
the  Northern  States  who  would  be  delighted  with  a  war  with 
England.  But  ninety-nine  hundredths  of  the  honest  citizens  of 
the  North  must  above  all  things  desire  to  avoid  a  quarrel  with  us 
at  the  present  moment,  and  they  will  I  fear  only  interpret  our 
accusation  of  a  contrary  design  as  a  proof  that  we  wish  to  pick  a 
quarrel  with  them. 

"Nothing  is  more  clear  to  me  than  that  the  world  is  under- 
rating in  this  struggle  the  power  of  the  North.  I  have  paid  two 
visits  to  that  country  at  an  interval  of  twenty-four  years  between 
the  first  and  second  trip.  I  do  not  believe  anybody  without  two 
such  visits  can  form  an  idea  of  the  power  and  resources  and  the 
rapid  town  growth  of  that  people.  As  for  the  Slave  States  I  look 
upon  them  as  doomed  in  any  case  to  decay  and  almost  barbarism. 
If  Christianity  is  to  survive,  there  can  be  no  future  for  slavery. 
But  those  Free  States  where  slavery  is  prohibited  will  in  all  human 
probability  contain  more  than  one  hundred  millions  of  people  in 
the  lifetime  of  persons  now  born.  Is  it  wise  with  us  who  have 
an  India,  as  they  have  their  slaves,  to  give  cause  to  that  great 
future  nation  to  remember  witli  feelings  of  hatred  and  revenge 
our  successors  to  remote  generations  ?     Ought  not  we  most  care- 

^  Messrs.  Slidell  and  Mason,  two  Commissioners  from  the  Confederate  States  to 
Europe,  were  passengers  on  board  the  West  India  mail  steamer  Troit.  Captain 
Wilkes,  of  the  United  States  war-vessel  San  Jacinto,  stopped  the  Trent  by  firing  a 
shot  across  her  bows,  took  the  Commissioners  forcibly  out  of  her,  and  sailed  away 
with  them  (Nov.  8).  After  an  interchange  of  correspondence  between  Lord  Russell 
and  Mr.  Seward,  and  the  despatch  of  British  troops  to  Halifax,  the  men  were  given 
up,  and  reached  England  on  January  29.     (See  Irving's  Annals,  p.  614.) 


JEt.  57.]  INTERNATIONAL   LAW.  ,  571 

fully  and  generously  to  guard  ourselves  against  the  possibility  of 
being  shown  hereafter  to  have  taken  advantage  of  the  North  in 
the  hour  of  its  trial  ? 

"  Upon  the  whole  I  do  not  complain  of  our  Government,  nor  do 
I  think  the  Americans  can  fully  charge  us  as  a  nation  with  hav- 
ing failed  to  bear  with  fortitude  and  temper  the  great  suffering 
the  civil  war  has  inflicted  on  our  cotton  trade.  It  is  true  we  have 
our  Times  as  the  An)ericans  have  their  Herald,  and  the  twin  in- 
cendiaries may  pair  off  together." 

''  Midlmrst,  Dec.  6,  1861.  {To  Mr.  Briylit)  —  Your  admirable 
address  cannot  fail  to  do  good.^  But  it  is  a  mad  world  we  live 
in !  Here  am  I  in  the  midst  of  extracts  from  Hansard,  &c.,  to 
show  np  the  folly  or  worse  of  the  men  who  have  been  putting  us 
to  millions  of  expense  to  protect  us  from  a  coup  de  main  from 
Trance,  and  now  we  see  the  same  people  willing  to  rusii  into  war 
with  America,  and  leave  us  exposed  to  this  crafty  and  dangerous 
neighbor !  Might  we  not  be  justified  in  turning  hermits,  letting 
our  beards  i^row,  and  returning^  to  our  caves !  .  .  .  . 

"  Has  it  occurred  to  you  that  this  war  is  now  nearly  a  year  old, 
and  the  South  has  rather  gained  than  receded  on  the  Potomac, 
having  stopped  the  navigation  to  the  Federal  capital  ?  How  long 
will  foreign  powers  look  on  if  nothing  decisive  be  done  ?  I  doubt 
whether  another  year's  blockade  will  be  borne  by  the  world. 
What  say  you  ?  If  you  agree,  you  should  let  Sumner  know.  My 
own  conviction  is  that  if  there  is  to  be  no  early  compromise  and 
settlement  between  North  and  South,  and  if  the  North  do  not 
voluntarily  raise  the  blockade,  there  will  next  year  be  an  inter- 
vention in  some  shape.  A  Bordeaux  merchant  came  here  to  me 
a  few  days  ago.  He  says  the  export  of  wine  and  spirits  from  that 
port  to  New  Orleans  was  30,000  tuns  per  annum,  which  is  cut  off 
to  a  gallon.  He  says  also  that  their  trade  in  liquors  and  fruits 
with  New  York,  &c.,  is  nearly  destroyed  by  the  Morrill  tariff. 
He  tells  me  the  feeling  is  very  bitter  in  France,  and  tliat  the  Em- 
peror would  be  supported  if  he  were  to  join  England  in  breaking 
up  the  blockade.  France  has  a  far  greater  stake  in  the  export 
trade  to  the  South  than  England,  owing  to  her  old  connection 
with  New  Orleans." 

''Midhurst,  Dec.  14,  1861.  {To  M.  Chevalier.)  — There  is  con- 
siderable reaction  in  the  public  mind,  I  think,  on  the  American 
question.  Some  large  public  meetings  liave  passed  resolutions  in 
favor  of  arbitration ;  and  the  religious  congregations  have  been 
also  making  demonstrations  for  peace.  I  expect  the  Americans 
will  propose  either  to  restore  the  status  quo,  and  let  the  United 
States  Admiralty  Courts  decide,  or  else  refer  to  arbitration.      I 

1  Mr.  Bright  spoke  on  the  Trent  Affair  and  on  the  American  War  generally,  at 
Rochdale,  December  4,  1861.  — Speeches,  i.  167. 


572  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1861. 

hope  the  Emperor  will  offer  his  mediation  if  an  opportunity  oc- 
curs. Neither  party  will  be  in  the  humor  to  refuse.  It  is  high 
time  that  we  had  a  revision  of  these  so-called  international  mari- 
time laws.  They  are  merely  traps  laid  for  nations  to  fall  into 
wars.  I  do  not  believe  in  a  war.  Palmerston  likes  to  drive  the 
wheel  close  to  the  edge,  and  show  how  dexterously  he  can  avoid 
falling  over  the  precipice.  Meantime  he  keeps  people's  attention 
employed,  which  suits  him  politically.  But  I  hope  this  game  is 
nearly  played  out.     I  am  quite  sick  of  it." 

''Jan.,  1862.  {To  Mr.  Faulton)  —  Palmerston  ought  to"  be 
turned  out  for  the  reckless  expense  to  which  lie  has  put  us. 
He  and  his  colleagues  knew  there  could  be  no  war.  From  the 
moment  they  were  informed  of  the  course  France,  Prussia,  and 
Austria  were  taking  in  giving  us  their  moral  support  (and  they 
knew  this  early  in  December),  a  war  was,  as  they  knew,  impos- 
sible. Then  came  Seward's  despatch  to  Adams  on  the  19th  De- 
cember, which  virtually  settled  the  matter.  To  keep  alive  the 
wicked  passions  in  this  country  as  Palmerston  and  his  Post  did, 
was  like  the  man,  and  that  is  the  worst  that  can  be  said  of  it. 

"  I  can't  see  my  way  through  the  American  business.  I  don't 
believe  the  North  and  South  can  ever  lie  in  the  same  bed  again. 
Nor  do  I  see  how  the  military  operations  can  be  carried  into  the 
South,  so  as  to  inflict  a  crushing  defeat.  Unless  something  of  the 
kind  takes  place  I  predict  that  Europe  will  recognize  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  South.  I  tell  Sumner  this,  and  tell  liim  that 
his  only  chance  if  he  wants  time  to  flght  it  out  is  to  raise  the 
blockade  of  the  Mississippi  voluntarily,  and  then  Europe  might 
look  on. 

"  But  our  friend  Bright  will  not  hear  of  anything  against  the 
claims  of  the  North.  I  admire  his  jjluck,  for  when  lie  goes  with 
a  side  it  is  always  to  win.  I  tell  him  that  it  is  possible  to  wish 
well  to  a  cause  without  being  sure  that  it  will  be  successful. 
However,  he  will  soon  find  in  the  House  that  we  shall  be  on  this 
question  as  we  were  on  China,  Crimean,  and  Greek  Pacifico  wars, 
quite  in  a  minority !  There  is  no  harm  in  that  if  you  are  right, 
but  it  is  useless  to  deceive  ourselves  about  tlie  issue.  Three 
fourths  of  the  House  will  be  glad  to  find  an  excuse  for  voting  for 
the  dismemberment  of  the  great  Republic." 

''Nov.  29,  1861.  {To  Mr.  Charles  Sunmer)  —  !  hear  that  the 
law  officers  of  the  Crown  have  decided  that  you  are'  not  within 
the  law  in  what  has  been.  done.  I  leave  your  lawyers  to  answer 
ours.  The  question  of  legality  in  matters  of  international  law 
has  never  been  very  easily  settled.  However,  the  only  danger  to 
the  peace  of  the  two  countries  is  in  the  temper  which  may  grow 
out  of  this  very  trivial  incident.  The  Press  will,  as  usual,  try  to 
envenom  the  affair.    It  is  for  us  and  all  who  care  for  the  interests 


yEr.  5Y.]  INTERNATIONAL   LAW.  573 

of  humanity,  to  do  our  utmost  to  thwart  these  mischief-makers. 
You  may  reckon  on  Bright,  myself,  and  all  our  friends  being  alert 
and  activ^e  in  this  good  work,  and  we  reckon  on  the  co-operation 
of  yourself  and  all  who  sympathize  with  you.  Though  I  said  in 
my  other  letter  that  I  shall  never  care  to  utter  a  word  about  the 
merits  of  a  war  after  it  has  begun,  I  do  not  the  less  feel  it  my 
duty  to  try  to  prevent  hostilities  occurring.  Let  me  here  remark 
that  I  cannot  understand  how  you  should  have  thought  it  worth 
your  while  at  Washington  to  have  reopened  this  question  of  the 
right  of  search,  by  claiming  to  exercise  it  in  a  doubtful  case  and  a 
doubtful  manner,  under  circumstances  which  could  be  of  so  little 
advantage,  and  to  have  incurred  the  risk  of  greater  disadvantages. 
The  capture  of  Mason  and  Slidell  can  have  little  effect  in  discour- 
aging the  South,  compared  with  the  indirect  encouragement  and 
hope  it  may  hold  out  to  them  of  embroiling  your  Government 
with  England.  I  am  speaking  with  reference  to  the  policy,  and 
leaving  out  of  sight  the  law  of  the  case.  But  in  the  latter  view 
we  are  rather  unprepared  to  find  you  exercising  in  a  strained 
manner  the  right  of  search,  inasmuch  as  you  have  been  supposed 
to  be  always  the  opponents  of  the  practice.  I  was  under  the 
impression  that  our  Govern  men  t  was  told  pretty  plainly  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  Crimean  War  that  it  would  be  risking  the  peace 
of  this  country  with  yours  if  we  claimed  the  right  of  search  in 
the  open  sea.  I  am  not  in  a  position  to  know  how  far  this  was 
the  case.  Can  you  tell  me  if  there  be  any  documents  on  the 
subject?  If  it  were  so,  we  should,  of  course,  all  unite  in  holding 
you  to  your  own  doctrine. 

"P.  S. —  Since  writing  the  accompanying,  we  have  the  details  of 
the  capture  of  Mason  and  Slidell  in  our  packet  vessel.  You  may 
be  right  in  point  of  law,  though,  perhaps,  in  technical  strictness, 
the  lawyers  may  pick  a  hole.  BjU  I  am  satisfied  you  are  vjrong 
in  point  of  policy.  There  is  an  impression,  I  know,  in  high  quar- 
ters here,  that  Mr.  Seward  wishes  to  quarrel  with  this  country. 
This  seems  absurd  enough.  I  confess  I  have  as  little  confidence 
in  him  as  I  have  in  Lord  Palmerston.  Both  will  consult  Bunkum 
for  the  moment,  without  much  regard,  I  fear,  for  the  future.  You 
must  not  lose  sight  of  this  view  of  the  relations  of  the  two  coun- 
tries. Formerly  England  feared  a  war  with  the  United  States  as 
much  from  the  dependence  on  your  cotton  as  from  a  dread  of 
your  power.  Now  the  popular  opinion  (however  erroneous)  is 
that  a  war  would  give  us  cotton.  And  we,  of  course,  consider 
your  power  weakened  by  your  civil  war.  I  speak  as  a  friend  of 
peace,  and  not  as  a  partisan  of  my  own  country,  in  wishing  you 
to  bear  this  in  mind." 

"■Bee.  6,  1861.  — Since  writing  my  letter  of  yesterday's  date,  I 
have  read  General  Scott's  admirable  letter.     It  contains  a  passage 


574  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1861. 

to  the  following  effect :  '  I  am  sure  that  the  President  and  people 
of  the  United  States  would  be  but  too  happy  to  let  these  men  go 
free,  unnatural  and  unpardonable  as  their  offences  have  been,  if 
by  it  they  could  emancipate  the  commerce  of  the  world.  Greatly 
as  it  would  be  to  our  disadvantage  at  this  present  crisis  to  sur- 
render any  of  those  maritime  privileges  of  belligerents  which  are 
sanctioned  by  the  laws  of  nations,  I  feel  that  I  take  no  responsi- 
bility in  saying  that  the  United  States  will  be  faithful  to  her  tra- 
ditional policy  upon  this  subject,  and  to  the  spirit  of  her  political 
institutions.' " 

''Dec.  12,  1861.  —  The  Times  and  its  yelping  imitators  are  still 
doing  their  worst,  but  there  is  a  powerful  moderate  party.  I 
hope  you  will  offer  promptly  to  arbitrate  the  question.  There  is 
one  point  on  which  you  must  absolutely  define  your  platform. 
You  must  acknowledge  the  South  as  belligerents  to  give  you  a 
standing  ground  on  the  Trent  affair.  Some  of  your  newspapers 
argue  that  you  have  a  right  to  carry  off  a  rebel  from  an  English 
vessel,  which  means  that  Austria  might  have  seized  Kossuth 
under  similar  circumstances.  Were  you  to  take  such  ground, 
there  w^ould  be  W9,r." 

"Dec.  19,  1861.  —  Everybody  tells  me  that  war  is  inevitable, 
and  yet  I  do  not  believe  in  war.  But  it  must  be  admitted  that 
there  are  things  said  and  done  on  your  side  that  make  it  very 
difficult  for  the  advocates  of  peace  on  this  side  to  keep  the  field. 
We  can  get  over  the  sayings  of  your  Herald,  that  '  France  will 
not  and  England  dare  not  go  to  war.'  Your  newspapers  will  not 
drive  us  into  war.  But  when  grave  men  (or  men  that  should 
be  grave),  holding  the  highest  posts  in  your  cultivated  State  of 
Massachusetts,  compliment  Captain  Wilkes  for  having  given  an 
affront  to  the  British  lion,  it  makes  it  very  hard  for  Bright  and 
me  to  contend  against  the  '  British  lion  party '  in  this  country. 
All  I  can  say  is  that  I  hope  you  have  taken  Bright's  advice  and 
offered  unconditional  arbitration.  With  that  offer  publicly  made, 
the  friends  of  peace  coulQ  prevent  our  fire-eaters  from  assaulting 
you,  always  providing  that  your  public  speakers  do  not  put  it  out 
of  our  power  to  keep  the  peace.  I  was  sorry  to  see  a  report  of  an 
anti-English  speech  by  your  colleague  at  New  York.  Honestly 
speaking,  and  with  no  blind  patriotism  to  mislead  me,  I  don't 
think  the  nation  here  behaved  badly  under  the  terrible  evil  of 
loss  of  trade  and  danger  of  starving  under  your  blockade.  Of 
course  all  privileged  classes  and  aristocracies  hate  your  institu- 
tions —  that  is  natural  enough ;  but  the  mass  of  the  people  never 
went  with  the  South.  I  am  not  pleased  with  your  pioject  of 
sinking  stones  to  block  up  ports !  That  is  barbarism.  It  is  quite 
natural  that,  smarting  as  you  do  under  an  unprovoked  aggression 
from  the  slave-owners,  you  should  even  be  willing  to  smother 


jet.oI.i  international  law.  575 

them  like  hornets  in  their  nest.  But  don't  forget  the  outside 
world,  and  especially  don't  forget  that  the  millions  in  Europe  are 
more  interested  even  than  their  princes  in  preserving  the  future 
commerce  with  the  vast  region  of  the  Confederate  States." 

"Jan.  23,  1862.  —  It  is,  perhaps,  well  that  you  settled  the 
matter  of  sending  away  the  men  at  once.  Consistently  with  your 
own  principles,  you  could  not  have  justified  their  detention.  But 
it  is  right  you  should  know  that  there  was  a  great  reaction  going 
on  through  this  country  against  the  diabolical  tone  of  the  Times 
and  Post.  (I  suspect  stockjobbing  in  these  quarters.)  The  cry 
of  arbitration  had  been  raised  and  responded  to,  and  I  was  glad 
to  see  the  religious  people  once  more  in' the  field  in  favor  of  peace. 
Be  assured,  if  you  had  offered  to  refer  the  question  to  arbitration, 
there  could  not  have  been  a  meeting  c-alled  in  England  that  would 
not  have  indorsed  it.  The  only  question  was  whether  we  ought 
to  be  the  first  to  offer  arbitration.  I  mean  this  was  the  only 
doubt  in  the  popular  mind.  As  regards  our  Government,  they 
are,  of  course,  feeling  the  tendency  of  public  opinion.  A  friend 
of  mine  in  London,  a  little  behind  the  scenes,  wrote  to  me :  — 
*  They  are  busy  at  the  Foreign  Office  hunting  up  precedents  for 
arbitration,  very  much  against  their  will.'  I  write  all  this  be- 
cause I  wish  you  to  know  that  we  are  not  quite  so  bad  as  appeared 
at  first  on  the  surface." 

In  the  same  letter,  after  arguing  for  the  raising  of  the  blockade 
by  the  North,  he  says  :  — 

"  All  the  reflection  I  have  been  able  to  give  the  subject  confirms 
me  in  the  view  I  expressed  in  my  former  letter.  Propose  to 
Europe  a  clean  sweep  of  the  old  maritime  law  of  Vattel,  Puffen- 
dorf,  .and  Co.;  abolish  blockades  of  commercial  ports  on  the 
ground  laid  down  in  Cass's  despatch  which  you  sent.  Get  rid  of 
the  right  of  search  in  time  of  war  as  in  time  of  peace,  and  make 
private  property  exempt  from  capture  by  armed  vessels  of  every 
kind,  whether  government  vessels  or  privateers.  And,  as  an 
earnest  of  your  policy,  offer  to  apply  the  doctrine  in  your  present 
war.  You  would  instantly  gain  France  and  all  the  continent  of 
Europe  to  your  side.  You  would  enlist  a  party  in  England  that 
can  always  control  our  governing  class  when  there  is  a  sufficient 
motive  for  action ;  and  you  acquire  such  a  moral  position  that  no 
power  would  dream  of  laying  hands  on  you.  I  think  I  told  you 
that  all  our  commercial  and  trading  community  have  already 
pronounced  in  favor  of  exempting  private  property  from  capture 
by  government  ships,  as  first  proposed  by  Mr.  Marcy.  In  the 
ensuing  session  of  Parliament  I  intend  to  make  a  speech  on  the 
subject  of  maritime  law,  in  which  I  will  undertake  to  prove  that 
we,  above  all  other  countries,  are  interested  in  carrying  out  all 
the  above  three  propositions  of  reform.     With  the  exception  of 


576  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1862. 

the  aristocratic  classes,  who  have  an  instinctive  leaning  for  any 
policy  which  furnishes  excuses  for  large  naval  and  military  estab- 
lishments, everybody  will  be  favorable  to  the  change." 


Maritime  Law. 

"  Midhurst,  Feb.  2.  {To  A.  W.  Paulton.)  —  I  hope  to  see  you 
on  Wednesday  evening.  I  have  an  idea  (about  which  we  can 
talk)  of  occupying  ground  in  the  House  upon  the  subject  of  rights. 
of  neutrals  by  giving  notice  early  of  something  of  this  kind  : 
*  Tliat  in  the  opinion  of  the  House  the  questions  affecting  belli- 
gerent rights  and  the  rights  of  neutrals  are  in  an  unsatisfactory 
state,  and  demand  the  early  attention  of  her  Majesty's  Govern- 
ment.' 

"  A  Committee  on  Shipping  in  1860  reported  in  favor  of  adopt- 
ing Marcy's  plan  of  exempting  private  property  altogether  from 
capture  by  Government  ships  as  well  as  privateers,  but  nothing- 
was  done. 

"  Now,  I  think  such  a  motion  must  be  agreed  to,  because  all 
parties  are  dissatisfied  with  matters  as  they  were  left  at  Paris  in 
1856.     In  my  speech  I  should  advocate  :  — 

"  1st.  The  making  of  private  property  sacred  from  capture  by 
armed  ships  of  all  kinds. 

"2d.  Exempting  neutral  ships  from  search  or  visitation  in 
time  of  war  as  in  time  of  peace. 

"  3d.  The  abolition  of  blockade  of  commercial  ports  or  coast 
lines. 

"  I  could  make  it  clear  that  England  is  beyond  all  countries 
interested  in  carrying  out  these  points. 

"  Have  you  been  reading  anything  about  International  Law  ? 
If  so,  give  me  the  benefit  of  your  observations.  What  I  shall 
want  is  standing  ground  to  show  the  absolute  necessity  for  a 
change.  Are  there  not  great  discrepancies  between  Lord  John's 
present  doctrines  and  our  former  supposed  principles  ?  For  in- 
stance, I  thought  all  our  authorities,  including  Phillimore's  last 
book,  agreed  that  a  belligerent  could  take  a  neutral  ship  anytvkere, 
and  carry  Ijer  into  port  for  adjudication." 


The  Commercial  Class. 

"  Feb.  7,  1862.  {To  Mr.  Henry  Ashworth.)  —  I  am  quite  happy 
to  see  you  at  the  head  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce.  With  many 
faults  and  shortcomings,  our  mercantile  and  manufacturing  classes 
as  represented  in  the  Chambers  of  Commerce  are  after  all  the 
only  power  in  the  State  possessed  of  wealth  and  political  influ- 


^T.  58.]  INTERNATIONAL  LAW.  577 

ence  sufficient  to  counteract  in  some  degree  the  feudal  governing 
class  of  this  country.  They  are,  indeed,  the  only  class  from  whom 
we  can  in  our  time  hope  for  any  further  beneficial  changes. 

"  It  is  true  they  are  often  timid  and  servile  in  their  conduct 
towards  the  aristocracy,  and  we  must  wink  at  their  weaknesses  if 
we  are  to  keep  them  political  company.  But  there  is  always  this 
encouragement  to  hope  better  things  —  that  they  have  no  interest 
opposed  to  the  general  good,  whilst,  on  the  contrary,  the  feudal 
governing  class  exists  only  by  the  violation  of  sound  principles  of 
political  economy,  and  therefore  the  very  institution  is  hostile  to 
the  interests  of  the  masses. 

"I  wish  we  could  inspire  the  mercantile  manufacturing  com- 
munity with  a  little  more  self-respect.  The  future  of  England 
must  depend  on  them,  for,  as  Deacon  Hume  said  twenty  years 
ago,  we  have  long  passed  the  time  when  the  prosperity  of  this 
country  depended  on  its  land,  and  yet  how  little  share  this  all- 
important  interest  claims  in  the  government  of  the  country." 


Maritime  Law  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

"Feb.  14,  1862.  {To  M.  Chevalier).  —  I  have  not  yet  secured 
an  evening  for  my  motion.  We  have  to  ballot  for  the  first  chance, 
and  there  are  always  a  good  many  candidates  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  session.  I  intend  to  move  the  resolution  on  the  other 
side.  If  this  be  affirmed  by  the  House,  as  I  have  no  doubt  it  will 
be,  the  government  will  be  obliged  to  take  some  steps  in  the 
matter,  and  when  once  they  begin,  I  defy  them  to  stop  without 
completing  my  programme. 

"  P.  S.  —  Mr.  Cobden  to  move  :  — 

That  the  present  state  of  international  maritime  law,  as  affecting  the  rights 
of  belligerents  and  neutrals,  is  ill-defined  and  unsatisfactory,  and  calls  for  the 
attention  of  her  Majesty's  Government. 

"  But  I  fear  it  will  be  some  weeks  before  I  can  secure  an  even- 
ing." 

"  March  4.  (  „  )  —  After  I  had  given  notice  of  my  motion  in 
the  House,  Mr.  Horsfall,  the  Tory  M.  P.  for  Liverpool,  complained 
that  I  was  poaching  on  his  domain,  as  he  had  announced  his  inten- 
tion in  the  previous  session  to  bring  the  subject  of  maritime  law 
before  Parliament.  On  referring  back  to  the  proceedings  of  last 
year,  I  found  he  was  correct,  and  as  it  is  a  sort  of  etiquette  in  the 
House  not  to  encroach  on  each  other's  territory,  I  yielded  at  once. 
Mr.  Horsfall  has  adopted  my  exact  words,  and  I  shall  second  his 
motion.  The  debate  stands  for  next  Tuesday,  the  11th.  I  am  very- 
well  satisfied  that  Mr.  Horsfall  originates  the  motion,  as  it  will 

37 


578  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1862. 

give  a  better  chance  of  success,  the  Tories  being  less  likely  to  op- 
pose one  of  their  own  party  than  me.  By  the  way,  Lindsay  says 
he  thinks  there  is  now  a  majority  in  the  House  in  favor  of  ex- 
empting private  property  from  capture.  The  question  respecting 
blockades  is  quite  new,  but  with  a  little  discussion  we  shall  carry 
that  point ;  and  I  am  still  convinced  that,  if  the  Emperor  will 
propose  the  three  points  which  I  quoted  in  a  former  letter,  we  can 
compel  our  government  very  shortly  to  acquiesce." 

"March  17.  (  „  )  —  In  all  my  political  life  I  have  never  suf- 
fered a  more  vexatious  disappointment  than  in  being  prevented 
from  speaking  last  Monday.  I  had  taken  great  trouble  to  pre- 
pare, and  should  have  had  a  good  opportunity  of  being  universally 
read  in  the  papers,  for  much  attrition  has  been  called  to  my  in- 
tention to  speak.  But  I  was  seized  with  a  sudden  hoarseness 
arising  from  a  cold,  and  on  Monday  was  unable  to  articulate.  The 
consequence  was  that  the  debate  to  my  mind  was  kept  to  too  nar- 
row a  basis.  However,  enough  was  said  and  admitted  on  all  sides 
to  prove  that  we  cannot  remain  where  we  are,  and  as  nobody  seri- 
ously proposes  to  go  back,  it  is  quite  clear  we  must  go  forward. 
I  am  convinced  that  the  result  will  be,  after  the  usual  agitation 
out  of  doors,  that  public  opinion  in  England  will  pronounce  for  a 
complete  revolution  in  the  maritime  law.  We  have  more  to  gain 
than  any  other  people  from  the  complete  removal  of  all  restric- 
tions on  freedom  of  commerce,  whether  in  time  of  peace  or  war. 
But  we  have  our  battle  to  fight  as  usual  with  our  own  feudal 
governing  class.  I  am  writing  this  in  my  bedroom,  and  cannot, 
therefore,  say  much.  As  respects  the  postage  question,  I  will  not 
lose  sight  of  it."  ^ 

"  Athenceimi,  London,  March  13.  (  „  )  —  You  will  see  that 
we  are  in  the  midst  of  a  debate  on  the  maritime  law,  and  you  may 
have  remarked  that  Palmerston  has  seized  the  opportunity  before 
the  discussion  was  over  to  declare  his  opposition  to  the  change 
affecting  private  property  of  belligerents  at  sea.  I  am  not  sur- 
prised at  this ;  for  a  man  of  seventy-seven,  whose  ideas  are  stere- 
otyped on  the  model  of  half  a  century  ago,  is  not  likely  to  favor 
any  measure  in  harmony  with  the  age  in  which  we  live.  But  I 
am  not  the  less  certain  that  these  changes  in  maritime  law  to 
which  T  alluded  before,  will  be  adopted  by  this  country.  It  takes 
time  with  us  English  people  to  make  up  our  minds,  but  when 
great  material  interests  can  be  appealed  to  on  the  side  of  principles 
of  freedom  and  humanity,  the  eventual  result  in  this  country  is 
not  doubtful.  It  is  a  terrible  evil  to  find  ourselves  with  an  old 
man  of  seventy-seven  at  our  head,  and  I  am  more  and  more  con- 

1  The  debate  was  resnmed  on  March  17  by  Mr.  Lindsay,  who  began  by  express- 
ing a  hope  that  Cobden  would  be  able  to  speak  before  the  end  of  the  evening.  His 
hoarseness,  however,  remained  intractable,  and  Mr.  Bright  spoke  instead. 


iET.  58.]  INTERNATIONAL   LAW.  579 

vinced  that  any  change  from  this  state  of  things  will  be  an  ad- 
vantage." 

Lord  Palmerston. 

"  Midhurst,  August  7,  1862.  (To  Mr.  Hargreaves)  —  I  have 
found  your  letter  on  coming  here.  If  Bright  could  have  been 
by  my  side  during  the  last  six  weeks  of  the  Session  I  think  we 
could  have  silenced  Palmerston.  He  had  laid  himself  open  to 
attack,  and  the  events  of  the  Session  had  made  him  very  vulner- 
able. However,  I  hope  I  have  spoilt  his  game  as  a  popular  dem- 
agogue a  little  for  the  recess.  But  he  has  a  terrible  run  of  good 
luck ;  and  then  I  am  afraid  of  the  tricks  he  may  be  allowed  by 
his  obsequious  colleagues  to  play  before  we  meet  again.  Nothing 
could  be  so  unfavorable  to  the  public  interest  as  the  present  state 
of  parties.  Palmerston  is  spending  many  millions  more  than  the 
Tories  would  dream  of  spending.  He  pampers  the  '  services '  to 
such  a  degree  that  they  draw  off  all  opposition  from  Dizzy's  party, 
so  that  there  is  no  check  on  anything  he  does.  There  was  liter- 
ally no  opposition  last  Session.  Then  Gladstone  lends  his  genius 
to  all  sorts  of  expenditure  which  he  disapproves,  and  devises 
schemes  for  raising  money  w^hich  nobody  else  would  think  of. 
Thus  he  gets  the  funds  for  fortifications  by  a  system  of  loans, 
wliich  tends  to  keep  the  waste  out  of  the  annual  accounts.  If 
the  money  had  to  be  raised  out  of  the  taxes,  we  could  resist  it. 
In  the  same  spirit  he  goes  into  China  wars,  and  keeps  a  Dr.  and 
Or.  account,  deluding  himself  and  the  public  with  the  idea  that 
these  wars  are  at  the  expense  of  the  Chinese,  whereas  for  every 
million  we  get  from  that  country  we  spend  at  least  as  much  in 
increased  cost  of  establishments  there ;  and  it  seems  more  and 
more  doubtful  whether  much  more  will  be  got  on  any  terms.  How 
we  are  to  accomplish  the  change  I  know  not,  but  it  would  be  a 
great  gain  to  the  public  if  we  could  carry  the  Liberals  to  the 
Opposition  side  of  the  House.  It  seems  as  if  the  Tories  were 
determined  not  to  let  their  leaders  into  office.  They  are  too  well 
satisfied  with  things  as  they  are.     Well  they  may  be  ! " 


Commercial  Blockades. 

"  August  7,  1862.  {To  M.  Chevalier)  —  Our  Government,  as 
you  know,  is  constantly  declaring  that  we  have  the  greatest  inter- 
est in  maintaining  the  old  system  of  belligerent  rights.  Lord 
Russell  considers  that  we  must  preserve  the  right  of  blockade  as 
a  most  valuable  privilege  for  ourselves  on  some  future  occasion, 
and  you  will  see  that  almost  the  very  last  words  uttered  by  I^rd 
Palmerston  at  the  close  of  the  Session  were  to  assert  the  great 


580  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1862. 

interest  England  had  in  maintaining  these  old  belligerent  rights. 
In  fact  we  are  governed  by  men  whose  ideas  have  made  no  pro- 
gress since  1808, —  nay,  they  cling  to  the  ideas  of  the  middle 
ages  : " 

"  Manchester,  Oct.  25,  1862.  (  „  )  —  England  cannot  take  a 
step  with  decency  or  consistency,  to  put  an  end  to  the  blockade, 
until  our  Government  is  prepared  to  give  in  their  adhesion  to 
the  pri7iciple  of  the  abolition  of  commercial  blockades  for  the 
future.  This  our  antiquated  Palmerstons  and  Eussells  are  not 
willing  to  do.  They  have  a  sincere  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  com- 
mercial blockades  as  a  belligerent  weapon  against  our  enemies. 
They  are  ignorant  that  it  is  a  two-edged  sword,  which  cuts  the 
hand  that  wields  it  —  when  that  hand  is  England  —  more  than 
the  object  which  it  strikes.  Lords  Palmerston  and  Eussell  feel 
bound  to  acquiesce  in  the  blockade,  and  even  to  find  excuses  for 
it,  because  they  wish  to  preserve  the  right  for  us  of  blockading 
some  other  power. 

"  I  am  against  any  act  of  violence  to  put  an  end  to  the  war. 
We  should  not  thereby  obtain  cotton,  nor  should  we  coerce  the 
North.  We  should  only  intensify  the  animosity  between  the  two 
sections.  But  I  should  be  glad  to  see  an  appeal  made  by  all 
Europe  to  the  North  to  put  an  end  to  the  blockade  of  the  South 
against  legitimate  commerce,  on  the  ground  of  humanity,  accom- 
panied with  the  offer  of  making  the  abolition  of  commercial 
blockades  the  principle  of  international  law  for  the  future.  But 
this,  I  repeat,  our  own  Government  will  not  agree  to  at  present. 
We  have  a  battle  to  fight  against  our  own  ruling  class  in  England 
to  accomplish  this  reform.  I  am  by  no  means  so  sure  as  Glad- 
stone that  the  South  will  ever  be  a  nation.  It  depends  on  the 
'  Great  West.'  If  Ohio,  Michigan,  Illinois,  Indiana,  Iowa,  Wis- 
consin, and  Minnesota  sustain  the  President's  anti- slavery  procla- 
mation, there  will  be  no  peace  which  will  leave  the  mouth  of 
the  Mississippi  in  the  hands  of  an  independent  power.  A  few 
days  will  tell  us  how  these  elections  will  go." 


The  Cotton  Famine. 

"  J!^ov.  6, 1862.  (To  Lady  Hatherton)  —  Few  people  can  realize 
tlie  appalling  state  of  things  in  this  neighborhood.  Imagine  that 
the  iron,  stone,  and  coal  were  suddenly  withheld  from  Stafford- 
shire, and  it  gives  you  but  an  imperfect  idea  of  what  Lancashire, 
with  its  much  larger  population,  is  suffering  from  the  want  of 
cotton  ;  it  reverses  the  condition  of  the  richest  county  in  the 
kingdom,  and  makes  it  the  poorest.  A  capitalist  with  20,000/. 
invested  in  buildings  and  machinery,  may  be  almost  on  a  par 
with  his  operatives  in  destitution,  if  he  be  deprived  of  the  raw 


r 


^T.  58.]  INTERNATIONAL  LAW.  581 

material  which  alone  makes  his  capital  productive.  Bad  as  is  the 
state  of  things,  I  fear  we  are  only  at  its  commencement,  and  un- 
happily the  winter  is  upon  us  to  aggravate  the  sufferings  of  tlie 
working  people.  The  evil  is  spreading  through  all  classes.  The 
first  effects  will  be  felt  on  the  small  shopkeepers ;  the  weak  mill- 
owners  will  come  next.  I  met  a  magistrate  yesterday  from  Old- 
ham, and  he  told  me  that  at  the  last  meeting  of  the  Bench  four 
thousand  assessments  were  exempted  from  payment  of  poor  rates 
on  the  plea  of  inability  of  the  parties  to  pay  1  How  rapidly  this 
must  aggravate  the  pressure  on  the  remainder  of  the  property  of 
the  Union !  There  will  be  another  meeting  of  the  Manchester 
Committee  next  Monday,  at  which  it  will  be  proposed  to  extend 
it  to  a  National  Committee,  and  the  Queen  will  be  solicited  as 
Duchess  of  Lancaster  to  allow  her  name  to  appear  as  its  patron. 
An  energetic  effort  will  then  be  made  to  cover  the  whole  king- 
dom with  local  committees,  and  then  institute  a  general  canvass 
for  subscriptions.  By  this  means  we  may  keep  matters  in  toler- 
able order  till  Parliament  meets,  but  there  is  a  growing  opinion 
that  we  shall  have  to  apply  to  Parliament  for  imperial  aid. 
People  at  a  distance,  who  learn  that  the  poor  rates  in  Lancashire 
are  even  now  less  than  they  are  in  ordinary  times  in  the  agricul- 
tural districts,  cannot  understand  this  helplessness  and  destitu- 
tion. They  do  not  perceive  how  exceptional  this  state  of  things  is. 
Lancashire,  with  its  machinery  stopped,  is  like  a  man  in  a  faint- 
ing fit.  It  would  be  as  rational  to  attempt  to  draw  money  from 
the  one  as  blood  from  the  other.  Or  it  may  be  compared  to 
a  strong  man  suddenly  struck  with  paralysis ;  until  the  use  of 
his  limbs  and  muscles  be  restored  to  him,  ii  is  useless  to  tell  him 
to  help  himself."  jf^  ^^  ^  ^  ,p-  ^^j^'  '   ^  ^i'y\ 


Debate  on  Turke^^/     *^^  ^^   V  ^  E  S  1  T  Y3 

"  London,  June  2,  1863.  (  „  ) — We  had  a  d^ebate  in  tl 
House  on  the  Turkish  question  last  Friday,  eh'.^iroj909  ef  th^om- 
bardment  of  Belgrade  by  the  Turks.  ^  I  took  a  parI7and  send 
you  enclosed  an  extract  from  my  speech,  in  which  I  alluded  to 
the  policy  which  ought  to  be  pursued  in  the  East  on  the  part  of 

1  When  Servia  acquired  what  was  practically  her  independence,  Belgrade  was 
one  of  five  fortresses  which  the  Turks  continued  to  occupy.  In  the  summer  of  1S62 
an  affray,  such  as  was  frec^uent  enough,  took  place  between  some  Servian  citizens 
in  Belgrade,  and  some  soldiers  of  the  Turkish  garrison  in  the  citadel.  The  Turkish 
Pasha  proceeded  to  bombai'd  the  town,  and  European  diplomacy  was  once  more 
stirred  by  the  relations  between  Turkey  and  lier  dependencies.  In  the  debate  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  May  29,  1863,  Mr  Layard  made  an  elaborate  defence  of 
the  condition  and  prospects  of  the  Turkish  (Government.  Cobden  replied  in  a  par- 
ticularly able  statement  of  the  case  against  Turkey  and  the  traditional  policy  of  the 
British  Foreign  Office.  To  this  Mr.  Gladstone  r<'plied  in  turn,  not  taking  Mr. 
Layard's  line,  but  rather  deprecating  "a  general  crusade  against  Turkey,"  and  hop- 
ing for  the  best.  — Hansard,  clxxi.  p.  126,  etc. 


582  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1863. 

France  and  England.  As  you  will  see,  the  doctrine,  though 
somewhat  new  to  the  House,  was  very  well  received.  I  was  very 
much  struck  with  the  altered  feeling  towards  the  Turks.  They 
have  not  a  friend,  except  Palmerston  and  his  partial  imitator, 
Layard.  Palmerston  was  absent  from  the  debate  owing  to  a 
slight  attack  of  gout.  Gladstone  was  obliged  to  speak  in  reply 
to  me,  but  he  did  it  with  evident  reluctance.  There  will  be  no 
more  Crimean  wars  for  us  in  defence  of  the  Turks.  Should  a 
Slavonic  or  Hellenic  Garibaldi  arise  to  wage  war  with  the  Otto- 
man oppressor,  British  public  opinion  will  instantly  leap  to  his 
side,  and  then  our  Foreign  Office  will  instantly  turn  its  back  upon 
its  old  traditions,  as  it  did  in  the  case  of  Italy.  There  is  no 
demagogue  like  our  high  officials  for  flattering  and  bowing  to  the 
popular  passion  of  the  hour  ! " 


The  Polish  Insurrection. 

"  June  22,  1863.  (  „  )  —  My  dear  friend,  I  do  not  under- 
stand what  good  can  come  from  an  interference  by  force  of  arms 
in  the  Polish  business.^  I  can  see  how  very  great  injury  could 
arise  to  ourselves.  We  draw  food  for  two  or  three  millions  of  our 
people  yearly  from  Russia.  If  your  nation  goes  into  such  a  war, 
it  will  of  course  be  with  the  hope  of  getting  some  extension  of 
territory  out  of  the  squabble.  That  would  no  doubt  be  the  case. 
Germany  would  fall  into  confusion,  and  another  *  confederation ' 
would  arise,  in  which  France  would  of  course  have  a  voice,  and 
her  good  will  must  be  propitiated  by  a  concession  on  the  Rhine. 
To  this  I.  have  no  objection.  But  our  Foreign  Office  would  go 
into  convulsions  at  such  an  audacious  rupture  of  its  cherished 
traditions.  Then  as  we  are  not  in  want  of  further  territory,  and 
could  not  therefore  share  in  the  spoil,  the  danger  is  that  we 
should  quarrel  with  you.  I  hope  the  chimerical  scheme  will  not 
be  persevered  in." 

The  American  War. 

"  Jidy  11,  1862.  {To  Mr.  Sumner.)  —  It  is  a  long  time  since  I 
wrote  to  you.  Indeed,  to  confess  the  truth,  it  is  a  painful  task  for 
me  to  keep  up  my  correspondence  with  my  American  friends.  But 
I  have  not  been  a  less  anxious  observer  of  the  events  which  have 
passed  on  your  side.      I  shall  now  best  serve  the  interests  of  hu- 

1  In  the  beginning  of  1863,  in  consequence  of  the  shameless  brutality  of  tJie 
Eussian  conscription,  an  insurrection  had  broken  out  in  Poland.  The  Emperor  of 
the  French  proposed  that  our  Government  should  join  him  in  remonstrating  with 
Prussia  for  aiding  Russia.  Lord  Palmerston,  however,  for  once  took  Cobden's 
view,  and  "declined  to  fall  into  the  trap." 


iET.59.]  THE   AMERICAN   WAR.  583 

manity  by  telling  you  frankly  the  state  and  progress  of  opinion 
here.  There  is  an  all  but  unanimous  belief  that  you  cannot  subject 
the  South  to  the  Union.  Even  they  who  are  your  partisans  and 
advocates  cannot  see  their  way  to  any  such  issue.  It  is  necessary 
that  you  should  understand  that  this  opinion  is  so  widely  and 
honestly  entertained,  because  it  is  the  key  to  the  expression  of 
views  which  might  otherwise  not  be  quite  intelligible.  Among  j 
some  of  the  governing  class  in  Europe  the  wish  is  father  to  this 
thought.  But  it  is  not  so  with  the  mass  of  the  people.  Nor  is  it 
so  with  our  own  Government  entirely.  I  know  that  Gladstone 
would  restore  your  Union  to-morrow  if  he  could ;  yet  he  has 
steadily  maintained  from  the  first  that,  unless  there  was  a  strong 
Union  sentiment,  it  is  impossible  that  the  South  can  be  subdued. 
Now  the  belief  is  all  but  universal  that  there  is  no  Union  feeling 
in  the  South ;  and  this  is  founded  latterly  upon  the  fact  that  noi  \ 
cotton  comes  from  New  Orleans.  It  is  said  that  if  the  instinct  ! 
of  gain,  with  cotton  at  double  its  usual  price,  do  not  induce  the 
people  to  sell,  it  is  a  proof  beyond  dispute  that  the  political  re- 
sentment is  overwhelming  and  unconquerable." 

''Feh.  13,  1863.  {^To  Mr.  Sumner)  — li  I  have  not  written  to 
you  before,  it  is  not  because  I  have  been  indifferent  to  what  is 
passing  in  your  midst.  I  may  say  sincerely  that  my  thoughts  have 
been  almost  as  much  on  American  as  on  English  politics.  But  I 
could  do  you  no  service,  and  shrank  from  occupying  your  over- 
taxed attention,  even  for  a  moment.  My  object  in  now  writing  is 
to  speak  of  a  matter  which  has  a  practical  bearing  on  your  affairs. 
You  know  how  much  alarmed  I  was  from  the  first  lest  our  Gov- 
ernment should  interfere  in  your  affairs.  The  disposition  of  our 
ruling  class,  and  the  necessities  of  our  cotton  trade,  pointed  to 
some  act  of  intervention ;  and  the  indifference  of  the  great  mass 
of  our  population  to  your  struggle,  the  object  of  which  they  did 
not  foresee  and  understand,  would  have  made  intervention  easy, 
and  indeed  popular,  if  you  had  been  a  weaker  naval  power.  This 
state  of  feeling  existed  up  to  the  announcement  of  the  Presi- 
dent's Emancipation  Policy.  From  that  moment  our  old  anti- 
slavery  feeling  began  to  arouse  itself,  and  it  has  been  gathering 
strength  ever  since.  The  great  rush  of  the  public  to  all  the  pub- 
lic meetings  called  on  the  subject  shows  how  wide  and  deep 
the  sympathy  for  personal  freedom  still  is  in  the  breasts  of  our 
people,  I  know  nothing  in  my  political  experience  so  striking, 
as  a  display  of  spontaneous  public  action,  as  that  of  the  vast 
gathering  at  Exeter  Hall,  when,  without  one  attraction  in  the 
form  of  a  popular  orator,  the  vast  building,  its  minor  rooms 
and  passages,  and  the  streets  adjoining,  were  crowded  with  an 
enthusiastic  audience.  That  meeting  has  had  a  powerful  effect 
on  our  newspapers  and  politicians.     It  has  closed  the  mouths  of 


584  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1863. 

those  who  have  been  advocating  the  side  of  the  South.  And 
I  now  write  to  assure  you  that  any  uniriendly  act  on  the  part 
of  our  Government  —  no  matter  which  of  our  aristocratic  parties 
is  in  power  —  towards  your  cause,  is  not  to  be  apprehended. 
If  an  attempt  were  made  by  the  Government  in  any  way  to 
commit  us  to  the  South,  a  spirit  would  be  instantly  aroused 
which  would  drive  that  Government  from  power.  This,  I  suppose, 
will  be  known  and  felt  by  the  Southern  agents  in  Europe,  and,  if 
communicated  to  their  Government,  must,  I  should  think,  operate 
as  a  great  discouragement  to  them." 

''April  2,  1863.  (  ,,  )  —  There  are  certain  things  which  can 
be  done  and  others  which  cannot  be  done  by  our  Government. 
M^e  are  bound  to  do  our  best  to  prevent  any  ship  of  war  being 
built  for  the  Confederate  Government,  for  a  ship  of  war  can  only 
be  used  or  owned  legitimately  by  a  government.  But  with  muni- 
tions of  war  the  case  is  different.  They  are  bought  and  sold  by 
private  merchants  for  the  whole  world,  and  it  is  not  in  the  power 
of  governments  to  prevent  it.  Besides,  your  own  Government 
have  laid  down  repeatedly  the  doctrine  that  it  is  no  part  of  the 
duty  of  governments  to  interfere  with  such  transactions,  for  which 
they  are  not  in  any  way  responsible.  I  was  therefore  very  sorry 
that  Mr.  Adams  had  persisted  in  raising  an  objection  to  these  trans- 
actions, in  which,  by  the  way,  the  North  has  been  quite  as  much 
involved  as  the  South.  If  you  have  read  the  debate  in  the  House 
on  the  occasion  when  Mr.  Eorster  brought  on  the  subject  last 
week,  you  will  see  how  Sir  Eoundell  Ealmer,  the  Solicitor-General, 
and  Mr.  Laird,  the  shipbuilder,  availed  themselves  of  this  opening 
to  divert  attention  from  the  real  question  at  issue  —  the  building 
of  war  ships  to  the  question  of  selling  munitions  of  war,  in  which 
latter  practice  it  was  shown  that  you  in  tiie  North  were  the  great 
participators."  ♦ 

''May  2,  1863.  (  „  )  —  I  am  in  no  fear  whatever  of  any 
rupture  between  the  two  countries  arising  out  of  the  blockade,  or 
the  incendiary  language  of  the  politicians  or  the  Eress  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic,  though  these  may  help  to  precipitate  matters 
on  another  issue.  But  the  fitting  out  of  privateers  to  prey  on 
your  commerce,  and  to  render  valueless  your  mercantile  tonnage, 
is  another  and  more  serious  matter.  Great  material  interests  are 
at  stake,  and  unless  this  evil  can  be  put  down  the  most  serious 
results  may  follow.  Now  I  have  reason  to  know  that  our  Govern- 
ment fully  appreciates  the  gravity  of  this  matter.  Lord  Eussell, 
whatever  may  be  the  tone  of  his  ill-mannered  despatches,  is  sin- 
cerely alive  to  the  necessity  of  putting  an  end  to  the  equipping  of 
ships  of  war  in  our  harbors  to  be  used  against  the  Eederal  Govern- 
ment by  the  Confederates.  He  was  hond  fide  in  his  desire  to 
prevent  the  Alabama  from  leaving,  but  he  was  tricked,  and  was 


^T.59.]  THE  AMERICAN  WAR.  585 

angry  at  the  escape  of  that  vessel.  It  is  necessary  that  your 
Government  should  know  all  this ;  and  I  hope  public  opinion  in 
England  will  be  so  alive  to  the  necessity  of  enforcing  the  law,  that 
there  will  be  no  more  difficulty  in  the  matter.  If  Lord  Russell's 
despatches  to  Mr.  Adams  are  not  ver}^  civil,  he  may  console  him- 
self with  the  knowledge  that  the  Confederates  are  still  worse 
treated." 

"  May  22,  1863.  (  „  )  —  I  called  on  Lord  Russell,  and  read 
every  word  of  your  last  long  indictment  against  him  and  Lord 
Palmerston,  to  him.  He  was  a  little  impatient  under  the  treat- 
ment, but  I  got  through  ever}^  word.  I  did  my  best  to  improve  on 
the  text  in  half  an  hour's  conversation.  Public  opinion  is  recov- 
ering its  senses.  John  Bull,  you  know,  has  never  before  been  a 
neutral  when  great  naval  operations  have  been  carried  on,  and  he 
does  not  take  kindly  to  the  task ;  but  he  is  becoming  graciously 
reconciled.  He  also  now  begins  to  understand  that  he  has  acted 
illegally  in  applauding  those  who  furnished  ships  of  war  to  prey 
on  your  commerce.     It  will  not  be  repeated." 

"  Midhurst,  Aug.  7, 1863.  (  „  )  —  Though  we  have  given  you 
such  good  ground  of  complaint  on  account  of  the  cruisers  which 
have  left  our  ports,  yet  you  must  not  forget  that  we  have  been  the 
only  obstacle  to  what  would  have  been  almost  a  European  recog- 
nition of  the  South.  Had  England  joined  France,  they  would 
have  been  followed  by  probably  every  other  State  of  Europe, 
with  the  exception  of  Russia.  This  is  what  the  Confederate 
agents  have  been  seeking  to  accomplish.  They  have  pressed  rec- 
ognition on  England  and  France  with  persistent  energy  from  the 
first.  I  confess  that  their  eagerness  for  other  European  interven- 
tion in  some  shape  has  always  given  me  a  strong  suspicion  of  their 
conscious  weakness.  But  considering  how  much  more  we  have 
suffered  than  other  people  from  the  blockade,  this  abstinence  on 
our  part  from  all  diplomatic  interference  is  certainly  to  our  credit, 
and  tliis  I  attribute  entirely  to  the  honorable  attitude  assumed  by 
our  working  population." 

''Midhurst,  Jan.  8,  1863.  (To  Mr.  Paulton.)  — .  ...  Do  you 
remember  when  that  old  slave-dealer,  the  Confederate  envoy, 
breakfasted  with  you  last  spring,  and  we  were  discussing  the  vast 
preparations  then  making  by  the  Federal  government,  that  he 
remarked  with  considerable  emphasis,  when  alluding  to  the 
incapacity  of  the  Washington  government,  '  Sir,  I  know  these 
men  well,  and  I  tell  you  they  are  setting  in  motion  a  machine 
which  they  have  not  the  capacity  to  control  and  guide,'  I  have 
often  thought  of  the  truth  of  this  remark  when  witnessing  the 
frightful  mismanagement  at  headquarters  among  the  Federals  dur- 
ing the  last  twelve  months.  If  it  were  not  for  the  negro  element 
I  should  think  it  the  most  wild  and  chimerical  dream  that  ever 


686  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1863. 

entered  the  human  mind  to  think  of  subjugating  the  vast  region 
comprised  in  the  Southern  Confederacy.  But  I  have  a  suspicion 
that  the  much-despised  *  nigger '  is  going  to  play  the  part  of  arbiter 
in  this  great  conflict.  Neither  party  wishes  to  use  him  or  con- 
sult him  in  the  matter.  Both  parties  will  tolerate  his  inter- 
vention with  about  equal  disgust.  But  the  North  stands  in  the 
position  of  being  able  to  make  the  first  use  of  some  half-million 
of  men  who  are  capable  of  being  drilled  into  good  soldiers,  and 
bear  the  climate  of  the  battle-ground  without  the  average  losses 
from  disease. 

"  These  black  troops  in  posse  will  be  more  and  more  the  temp- 
tation of  the  North  to  make  the  plunge  for  complete  emancipation. 
It  is  indeed  doubtful  whether  another  army  of  Northern  whites 
could  be  raised.  If  the  Federal  Congress  bolt  the  black  dose, 
and  resolve  to  employ  black  regiments,  it  will  be  the  beginning 
of  the  end  of  slavery.  Is  it  not  apparently  tending  to  this  ? 
I  would  have  rather  seen  the  work  done  in  almost  any  other  way. 
But  the  Devil  of  battles  will  not,  I  hope,  have  it  all  his  own  way. 
God  will,  I  hope,  snatch  something  from  the  carnage  to  compensate 
us  for  this  terrible  work.  And  spite  of  the  Ti7nes  and  the  devil 
I  hope  the  slave  will  get  his  freedom  yet." 

'' Midhurst,  Jan,  18,  1863.  (  „  ) — .  .  .  .  I  join  with  you 
in  all  your  horror  of  this  vulgar  and  unscientific  and  endless 
butchery  in  America.  Before  the  first  shot  was  fired  I  wrote  to 
Sumner  to  say  that  if  I  were  a  New  Englander  I  would  vote  with 
both  hands  for  a  peaceful  separation.  But  since  the  fighting 
began  I  have  regarded  the  matter  as  beyond  the  control  of  reason 
or  moral  suasion,  and  I  have  endeavored  to  keep  my  mind  as  free 
as  I  could  from  an  all-absorbing  interest  in  the  struggle  —  simply 
on  this  utilitarian  principle  —  that  I  can  do  no  good  there,  and  I 
want  my  faculties  and  energies  to  try  and  do  something  here. 

"  My  only  absorbing  care  in  connection  with  the  civil  war  is  to 
endeavor  to  prevent  this  country  from  interfering  with  it.  To  this 
end  I  think  the  anti-slavery  direction  in  which  the  war  is  drifting 
will  be  favorable.  I  am  not  much  afraid  of  any  widespread  acts 
of  violence  on  the  part  of  the  negroes.  They  are  generally  under 
religious  impressions,  and  are  not  naturally  ferocious.  They  will 
grow  unsettled,  and  some  of  them  unmanageable,  and  there  will 
be  great  confusion  and  swaying  to  and  fro.  But  though  I  don't 
expect  them  to  rise  and  commit  desperate  crimes,  it  is  quite  evi- 
dent that  Jefferson  Davis  feels  all  the  force  of  the  emancipation 
measure  as  a  strategical  act.  He  has  allowed  his  passions  to 
master  him  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  as  shown  by  his  proclamation 
in  advance. 

"  It  will  be  a  strange  working  of  God's  Providence  if  the  negro 
turns  the  scale  for  the  North,  after  the  whites  on  both  sides  are 


iET.  59.]  THE   AMERICAN   WAR.  587 

exhausted.  It  is  clear  that  the  able-bodied  blacks  will  be  a  cheap 
resource  for  soldiers  for  the  Nortli  for  Southern  stations.  I  hope 
you  and  Hargreaves  have  agreed  not  to  get  into  an  excitement  on 
the  subject.^  The  issue  is  beyond  European  or  human  control 
now,  and  will  go  on  to  the  bitter  end." 


Visit  to  the  Fortifications. 

"  Midhurst,  Feb.  3.  (  „  )  —  ....  I  went  last  week  to 
Portsmouth  to  see  the  fortifications.  I  spent  a  couple  of  days  in 
the  neighborhood.  Starting  by  train  from  Chichester,  I  stopped 
at  Havant,  where  a  couple  of  officers  from  Portsmouth  met  me, 
and  we  went  thence  in  a  fly  over  the  Downs  by  Portsdown  Hill 
to  Fareham,  and  then  from  the  latter  place  to  Gosport. 

"  Our  road  along  the  downs  passed  beside  the  great  inland  chain 
of  forts  covering  all  the  high  ground  within  four  or  five  miles  of 
Portsmouth.  It  is  necessary  to  see  tliese  things  to  understand 
them.  The  South  Down  forts  are  not  designed  for  defence  against 
a  landing.  They,  as  well  as  an  inner  system  of  forts  between  the 
Downs  and  the  sea,  are  planned  on  the  theory  that  an  enemy  has 
beaten  us  at  sea  and  landed  in  force,  and  having  worsted  an  army 
on  shore,  these  forts  are  to  prevent  the  foreign  force  from  taking 
up  a  position  on  the  downs,  and  shelling  the  docks  at  four  or  five 
miles  off.  Of  course  the  theory  implies  that  the  enemy  is  free 
to  go  elsewhere,  and  the  reasonable  inference  may  be  that  he 
would  prefer  going  to  London,  or  at  least  coming  to  rob  our  hen- 
roosts who  live  under  the  downs  1  The  programme  of  course 
contemplates  that  our  own  soldiers  are  safely  ensconced  in  these 
forts  beneath  their  casemates,  and  behind  gigantic  ditches  in  the 
chalk  —  in  fact  you  never  saw  such  precipitous  excavations  as 
these  are  in  the  Downs  to  prevent  a  foreign  army  from  getting 
at  an  English  army,  whilst  the  country  is  at  their  mercy.  I  need 
hardly  add  that  there  is  not  an  officer  of  either  service  with  a 
head  on  his  shoulders  who  is  under  fifty,  that  does  not  look  with 
supreme  contempt,  disgust,  and  humiliation  at  these  works. 

"  My  companions  were  Captain  Cowper  Coles,  K.  N.,  the  in- 
ventor of  the  cupola  ships,  and  Colonel  Williams,  of  the  Ma- 
rine Artillery,  who  has  a  pension  for  wounds,  though  a  young 
man. 

"  I  saw  all  that  was  going  on  in  the  dockyards,  and  came 
away  with  the  conviction  that  we  are  now  wasting  our  money 
on  iron-cased  vessels  with  broadsides,  whilst  a  new  invention 
is    in   the   field  which  will   entirely  supersede    them.     Captain 

1  Mr.  Paulton,  like  Mr.  Lindsay,  Mr.  Moffatt,  and  one  or  two  other  of  Cobden'a 
iutiinate  friends,  did  not  sympathize  with  the  cause  of  the  Union. 


588  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1863. 

Coles  is  building  a  vessel  with  four  cupolas,  or  rather  is  super- 
intending the  alteration  of  one  on  a  principle  which  it  is  clear 
must  render  broadside  guns  useless." 

"  April  22,  1863.  {To  Mr.  Bright)  —  There  is  a  great  and 
growing  uneasiness  about  our  relations  with  the  United  States, 
and  there  is  so  wide  an  interest  taken  by  our  friends  from 
America  —  of  whom  there  is  an  influential  gathering  just  now 
drawn  to  this  side  by  an  apparent  fear  of  some  impending 
mischief — as  well  as  by  English  people,  that  I  feel  quite  op- 
pressed with  a  sense  of  the  responsibility,  and  write  to  say  that 
I  entreat  you  to  come  to  town,  if  only  on  Friday  to  return  on 
Saturday.^  Besides  the  confidence  you  give  me  when  we  are 
together,  I  feel  quite  sure  that  the  fact  of  your  being  present 
with  the  power  of  reply  exerts  a  restraining  influence  on  Palmer- 
sjion  and  the  other  speakers  on  the  Treasury  bench,  and  it  is 
^specially  important  that  they  should  be  so  restrained  on  this 
occasion.  I  hope  therefore  that  you  will  find  yourself  in  a  situa- 
tion to  come  for  one  night." 

"Sept.  8,  1863.  (  „  )  —  The  tide  of  battle  seems  to  have 
set  in  so  strongly  for  the  North,  that  I  don't  think  the  friends 
of  freedom  need  feel*  any  anxiety  about  the  result  so  far  as  fight- 
ing is  concerned.  There  is,  of  course,  a  tremendous  difficulty 
beyond,  but  there  is  something  more  than  accident  which  seems 
in  the  long  run  to  favor  the  right  in  this  wicked  world,  and  I 
have  a  strong  persuasion  that  we  may  live  to  see  a  compensat- 
ing triumph  for  humanity  as  the  result  of  this  most  gigantic  of 
civil  wars. 

"  I  confess  I  cannot  penetrate  the  mystery  of  French  politics 
in  connection  with  the  United  States  question.  I  suppose  the  Em- 
peror has  been  very  strongly  pressed  by  Slidell  and  other  interested 
parties  to  take  some  step  to  encourage  the  South.  His  unwise 
Mexican  expedition,  about  which  he  must  have  daily  more  of 
doubt  and  misgiving,  has  placed  him  in  a  false  and  dangerous  po- 
sition on  the  continent  of  North  America ;  and  we  all  know  how 
in  public,  as  in  private  life,  one  false  step  seems  only  to  necessitate 
another.  I  have  no  doubt  that  his  Mexican  embarrassment  is 
plied  with  consummate  tact  and  unscrupulous  daring  by  the  Con- 
federate agents.  The  Eichmond  government  will  offer  any  terms 
for  the  French  alliance.  Fortunately  they  are  in  such  straits 
themselves,  that  they  have  little  to  offer  as  a  temptation  to  an 
ambitious  but  cautious  mind  like  Napoleon's.  The  influential 
people  who  surround  the  Emperor,  such  as  Fould  and  Eouher,  are 
of  course  opposed  to  any  interference  in  the  American  quarrel.  .  .  . 
After  all,  our  chief  reliance  for  the  maintenance  of  a  non-interven- 

1  This  refers  to  an  important  speech  of  Cobden's  on  the  duty  of  enforcing  the 
Foreign  Enlistment  Act.     It  was  made  on  April  24. 


^T.59.]  THE   AMERICAN    WAR.  589 

tion  policy  by  France  and  England  is  not  in  the  merits  or  justice 
of  that  course,  but  —  it  is  sad  to  say  it  —  in  the  tremendous  war- 
like power  manifested  by  the  Free  States  of  America.  Some  shal- 
low and  indiscreet  members  of  our  aristocracy  exclaimed  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  '  The  Republican  bubble  has  burst ;  * 
but  the  experience  of  the  last  two  years  shows  that,  whether  in 
peace  or  war,  this  Eepublic,  instead  of  a  bubble,  is  the  greatest 

and  most  solid  fact  in  all  history It  is  to  be  hoped  that 

gradually  our  educated  mob  of  the  clubs  will  become,  however 
unwillingly,  acquainted  with  the  warlike  resources  of  America. 
At  present,  nine  out  of  ten  of  them  are  under  the  complacent  de- 
lusion that  we  have  the  power  at  any  moment  to  raise  the  block- 
ade, and  effect  a  peace  on  the  basis  of  separation.  And  such  is 
the  invulnerable  conceit  of  a  large  part  of  our  aristocratic  middle 
class,  that  if  such  facts  as  I  have  given  above  were  published  by 
you  or  myself,  they  would  be  read  with  incredulity,  and  we  should 
be  denounced  as  Yankee  sympathizers. 

"  I  always  take  for  granted  the  government  will  not  allow  the 
ironclads  to  leave  Laird's,  unless  they  know  their  real  destination. 
The  progress  of  the  Federal  arms  will  help  the  Cabinet  over  some 
of  the  legal  technicalities  of  the  enlistment  act." 

" Midhurst,  Oct.  12,  1863.  (  „  )— I  have  nothing  to  say, 
but  that  Mr.  Whiting,  who  is  here  as  successor  to  Mr.  Evarts  as 
legal  representative  of  the  Washington  government,  has  been  vis- 
iting me,  and  from  a  rather  confidential  conversation  with  him,  I 
find  that  you  must  have  been  misinformed  as  to  the  correspondence 
or  communications  that  have  been  taking  place  between  Adams 
and  our  Foreign  Office.  The  President,  from  what  I  gather  from 
Mr.  W.,  who  seems  to  be  in  the  most  confidential  relations  with 
him  and  his  Cabinet,  is  determined  whatever  happens,  short  of  a 
direct  intervention,  not  to  have  a  rupture  with  England  or  France 
during  the  Civil  War.  And  he  has  not  authorized  Adams  to  give 
any  notice  of  leaving  his  post  even  if  the  ironclads  are  permitted, 
on  the  plea  of  legality/,  to  leave  our  ports.  Nor  will  he  meddle 
with  Mexican  politics,  whatever  may  happen,  whilst  Jeff  Davis  is 
in  the  field.  In  all  this  he  shows  a  strong  common  sense  much 
to  be  commended. 

"  Mr.  Whiting  tells  me  that  Mr.  Adams  had  no  assurance  up  to 
the  last  from  our  Government  that  the  Rams  would  not  leave,  and 
even  when  our  semi-official  papers  were  announcing  that  they  had 
been  arrested,  he  gave  expression  to  a  fear  that  he  might  get  up 
any  morning  and  find  the  ships  had  escaped.  Now  that  I  see  by 
yesterday's  paper  that  the  broad  arrow  has  been  put  upon  the 
Rams,  I  suppose  the  matter  is  settled." 

"Midhurst,  Oct.  17,  1863.  (  „  )  — I  return  Aspinall's  and 
Chase's  letters.     I  was  pleased  with  Chase  when  I  saw  him  in 


590  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1863. 

Ohio,  where  he  was  Governor  of  the  State  in  1859.  He  is  in  his 
physical  and  mental  traits  not  unlike  Sumner  —  a  massy,  stately- 
principled  man,  but  more  practical  and  less  of  the  rhetorician 
than  his  Massachusetts  colleague.  He  is  altogether  a  different 
type  to  Seward. 

"  I  have  a  letter  from  Evarts  by  the  last  mail.  He  seems  well 
pleased  at  the  detention  of  the  Eams.  He  has  a  passage  in  bis 
letter  which  seems  rather  to  corroborate  your  information  about 
Lord  Eussell.  He  says,  *  From  information  which  I  have  of  the 
severity  and  uncertainty  of  the  final  struggle  with  your  ministry, 
Earl  Eussell  was  discreditably  slow  and  unsteady  in  coming  to 
the  right  decision.  I  am  sure  that  when  the  communications  of 
proofs  as  to  the  destination  of  these  ships  of  War  made  to  your 
government  are  made  public,  common  sense  on  both  sides  of  the 
water  will  be  shocked  at  the  stumbling  hesitancy  of  the  ministe- 
rial council  in  face  of  the  facts,  and  at  the  narrow  escape  the  two 
nations  have  had  from  at  least  partial  hostilities.' " 

"  October  4,  1864  (  „  )  —  I  should  say  that  as  a  politician 
Lincoln  is  very  superior  to  McClellan,  who  is  a  professional  sol- 
dier and  nothing  more.  By  the  way,  Lincoln  stumped  Illinois  for 
the  Senate  in  opposition  to  Douglas,  the  ablest  debater  in  America 
after  Clay.  They  travelled  from  county  town  to  county  town  to- 
gether, and  met  the  same  audience  on  the  same  platform  in  forty 
or  fifty  counties,  questioning,  bantering,  and  exposing  each  other's 
shortcomings.  It  is  the  fashion  to  underrate  Lincoln  intellectually 
in  part,  because  he  illustrates  his  arguments  with  amusing  anec- 
dotes. But  Franklin  was  not  less  given  to  apologues,  and  some 
of  them  not  of  the  most  refined  character.  It  is  quite  certain  that 
an  inferior  man  could  never  have  maintained  such  a  contest  as 
Lincoln  went  through  with  Douglas.  Presidents  are  apt  to  fulfil 
the  second  term  better  than  the  first.  Chase  is  the  strongest  man 
of  the  Republican  party,  and  I  sincerely  hope  Lincoln  will  bring 
him  back  to  the  Treasury. 

"  I  hope  you  were  pleased  with  the  compliment  paid  us  in 
California.^  There  is  a  poetical  sublimity  about  the  idea  of  as- 
sociating our  name  with  a  tree  300  feet  high  and  60  feet  girth  ! 
Verily  it  is  a  monument  not  built  with  men's  hands.  If  I  were 
twenty  years  younger,  I  would  hope  to  look  on  these  forest  giants ; 
great  trees  and  rivers  have  an  attraction  for  me." 

Political  Torpor  of  the  Day. 

"April  5,  1863.  {To  Mr.  Hargreaves)  —  How  do  you  admire 
the  reception  given  to  the  *  Feargus  O'Connor  of  the  middle  classes ' 

1  The  names  of  Cobden  and  Bright  were  inscribed  respectively  on  tablets  on  two 
of  the  giant  trees  of  the  Yoseniite  valley. 


^T.  59.]  THE   AMERICAN   WAR.  591 

in  Scotland  ?  ^  For  the  Town  Councils  and  their  addresses  I  can 
find  excuses ;  they  are  privileged  flunkies,  and  nothing  else  could 
be  expected  from  them.  But  there  is  no  doubt  that  tlie  demon- 
stration was  largely  shared  by  tlie  working  class,  which  is  certainly 
one  of  the  most  singular  and  inexplicable  of  public  incidents.     It 

brings  to  my  mind  the  saying  of  our  librarian, ,  who,  when 

speaking  of  the  old  Premier,  called  him  'the  most  successful  im- 
postor since  Mahomet  1 ' 

"  There  is  a  remarkable  fact  in  the  political  movement,  or  rather 
political  torpor  of  our  day,  that  the  non-electors,  or  workingmen, 
have  no  kind  of  organization  or  organ  of  tlie  Press  by  which  they 
can  make  their  existence  known,  either  to  help  their  friends  or  pre- 
vent their  body  being  used  as  was  done  in  Glasgow,  to  strengthen 
their  enemies  —  for  the  latter  effect  has  no  doubt  been  produced 
by  the  address  from  the  working  class  presented  to  the  Premier. 

"  I  observe  what  you  say  about  Bright's  powers  of  eloquence. 
That  eloquence  has  been  most  unsparingly  used  since  the  repeal 
of  the  Corn  Law,s  —  now  going  on  for  nearly  twenty  years  —  in 
advocating  financial  economy  and  parliamentary  reform,  and  in 
every  possible  way  for  the  abasement  of  privilege  and  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  masses.  If  he  could  talk  till  doomsday  he  would 
never  surpass  the  strains  of  eloquence  with  which  he  has  ex- 
pounded tlie  right  and  demolished  the  wrong  cause.  Yet  see  with 
what  absolute  lack  of  success  ! 

"  Now  if  you  have  ever  the  chance  of  bringing  your  influence 
to  bear  on  him  in  this  connection,  let  it  be,  I. entreat  you,  to  urge 
him  to  take  any  opportunity  that  the  working  class  may  offer  him 
to  tell  them  frankly  that  nobody  can  help  them  until  they  are 
determined  to  help  themselves.  Let  the  responsibility  be  thrown 
back  on  them  in  a  way  to  sting  them  into  an  effort,  if  self-respect 
fail  to  excite  them.  They  should  be  told  plainly  that  old  parties 
have  coalesced  on  the  ground  that  no  further  parliamentary  re- 
form is  required  —  that  five  millions  of  adult  males  in  the  king- 
dom are  politically  ignored,  or  only  remembered  to  be  insulted, 
and  that  this  state  of  things  will  endure  so  long  as  the  five  mil- 
lions eat,  drink,  smoke,  and  sleep  contentedly  under  the  proscrip- 
tion, and  that  no  power  on  earth  will  ever  help  them  out  of  their 
political  serfdom  until  they  show  that  they  can  discriminate  be- 
tween those  who  would  emancipate  them  and  those  who  would 
keep  them  as  they  are.  Until  the  non-electoral  class  can  have  a 
bond  fide  organization  in  every  large  town,  composed  of  their  own 
class,  and  self-sustained,  it  is  a  pure  waste  of  life  and  strength  for 
a  man  of  Bright's  genius  to  attempt  to  advance  their  cause  in 
that  packed  assembly,  the  House  of  Commons." 

*  Lord  Palmerston  was  installed  as  Lord  Rector  at  Hlasgow,  March  30,  and  had 
a  very  triumphant  reception.     See  Irving's  Annals  of  our  Time,  p.  644. 


6^92  LIFE   OE   COBDEN.  [1863. 

On  Privateering. 

''Oct.  6,  1863.  {To  Mr.  Bigeloia.)  —  In  1854,  on  the  breaking 
out  of  the  Crimean  war,  a  communication  was  sent  by  England 
and  France  to  the  American  Government,  expressing  a  confident 
hope  that  it  would,  '  in  the  spirit  of  just  reciprocity,  give  orders 
that  no  privateer  under  Russian  colors  shall  be  equipped,  or 
victualled,  or  admitted  with  its  prizes,  in  the  ports  of  the  United 
States,'  &c.  It  has  occurred  to  me  to  call  your  attention  to  this, 
although  I  dare  say  it  has  not  escaped  Mr.  Dayton's  recollection. 
But  I  should  be  curious  to  know  what  answer  the  French  Gov- 
ernment would  now  make  if  its  own  former  language  was  quoted 
against  the  course  now  being  taken  at  Brest  in  repairing,  and  I 
suppose  '  victualling,'  the  '  Florida.'  If  the  answer  be  that  this 
vessel  is  not  a  *  privateer '  but  a  regularly  commissioned  ship  of 
war,  then  I  think  the  opportunity  should  not  be  lost  to  put  on 
record  a  rejoinder  to  this  argument,  showing  the  futility  of  the 
Declaration  of  Paris  against  privateering ;  for^if  a  vessel  sailing 
under  one  form  of  authority  issued  by  Jefierson  Davis,  and  called 
a  *  commission,'  can  do  all  the  mischief  to  your  merchant  vessels 
which  another  could  do  carrying  another  piece  of  paper  called  a 
•  letter  of  marque,'  it  is  obvious  that  the  renunciation  of  priva- 
teering by  the  Paris  Congress  is  a  mere  empty  phrase,  and  all  the 
boasted  gain  to  humanity  is  nothing  but  a  delusion,  if  not  a  hol- 
low subterfuge.  I  think  it  might  be  well  if  Mr.  Dayton  were  to 
take  this  opportunity  of  justifying  the  policy  of  the  United  States 
in  refusing  to  be  a  party  to  the  Declaration  of  Paris,  unless  pri- 
vate property  at  sea  was  exempt  from  capture  by  armed  ships  of 
all  kinds.  The  argument  would  be  valuable  for  reproduction  at 
a  future  time,  when  the  question  of  belligerent  rights  comes  up 
again  for  discussion." 


CHAPTER    XXXV. 

CORRESPONDENCE   WITH   MR.   DELANE. 

It  was  inevitable  that  a  public  man,  working  for  a  transformation 
of  political  opinion,  should  incur  the  hostility  of  the  great  news- 
^  paper  of  the  day,  for  the  simple  reason  that  it  has  always  been 
the  avowed  principle  of  the  conductors  of  that  newspaper  to  keep 
very  close  to  the  political  opinion  of  the  country  in  its  unregen- 
erate  state.  This  principle  it  is  not  our  business  here  to  discuss, 
but  we  can  easily  perceive  how  it  would  come  to  make  the  news- 


iET.  59.]       CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  MR.  DELANE.         593 

paper  sincerely  inimical  to  the  Manchester  school.  We  need  not 
resort  to  private  grudges  to  explain  what  is  perfectly  intelligible 
without  them. 

"  I  remember,"  said  Cobden,.  in  his  speech  on  behalf  of  Mr. 
Bright  at  Manchester  in  1857,  "  the  first  time  I  spoke  in  public 
after  returning  home  from  the  Continent  in  1847.  It  was  at  a 
dinner-party  in  Manchester  at  which  I  took  the  chair ;  and  I 
took  the  opportunity  of  launching  this  question  of  the  press,  and 
saying  that  the  newspaper  press  of  England  was  not  free,  and 
that  this  was  a  thing  which  the  reformers  of  the  country  ought 
to  set  about  —  to  emancipate  it.  Well,  I  got  a  most  vicious  ar- 
ticle next  day  from  the  Times  newspaper  for  that,  and  the  Times 
has  followed  us  both  with  a  very  ample  store  of  venom  ever 
since."  ^  "  Any  man,"  he  said  on  the  same  occasion,  "  who  has 
lived  in  public  life,  as  I  have,  must  know  that  it  is  quite  useless 
to  contradict,  any  falsehood  or  calumny,  because  it  comes  up  again 
next  day  just  as  rife  as  ever.  There  is  the  Tiines  newspaper 
always  ready  to  repeat  it,  and  the  grosser  the  better."  "  My 
plan,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend  in  1861,  "  has  always  been  to  meet 
that  journal  with  a  bold  front,  and  neither  to  give  nor  to  take 
quarter.  I  may  add  that  if  ever  I  have  succeeded  in  any  public 
proceedings,  it  has  always  been  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  that 
print.  It  was  so  with  the  League ;  with  the  abolition  of  the 
Taxes  on  Knowledge ;  and  with  the  French  Treaty.  You  may 
take  my  word  for  it,  you  never  can  be  in  the  path  for  success,  in 
any  great  measure  of  policy,  unless  you  are  in  opposition  to  that 
journal."  ^ 

It  was  very  easy  to  see  the  reason  why  all  this  should  be  as  it 
was.^    In  1850  Cobden  told  Mr.  John  Cassell  that  he  believed  the     / 
newspaper  stamp  to  be  the  greatest  grievance  that  the  democracy 
had  in  the  whole  list  of  fiscal  exactions.     "  So  long  as  the  penny 
lasts,  there  can  be  no  daily  press  for  the  middle  or  working  class. 
Who  below  the  rank  of  a  merchant  or  wliolesale  dealer  can  afford 
to  take  in  a  daily  paper  at  fivepence  ?     Clearly  it  is  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  mechanic  and  the  shopkeeper.     The  result  is  that     / 
the  daily  press  is  written  for  its  customers  —  the  aristocracy,  the  ^ 
millionnaires,  and  the  clubs  and  news-rooms.     The  great  public 
cannot  have  its  organs  of  the  daily  press,  because  it  cannot  afford 
to  pay  for  them.  '  The  dissenters  have  no  daily  organ  for  the  same        , 
reason.     The  governing  class  in  this  country  will  resist  the  re-     v/ 
moval  of  the  penny  stamp,  not  on  account  of  the  loss  of  revenue 
{that  is  no  obstacle  with  a  surplus  of  two  or  three  millions),  but 
because  they  know  that  the  stamp  makes  the  daily  press  the  in-    / 
strument  and  servant  of  the  oligarchy." 

1  Speeches,  ii.  77.  «  To  Mr.  W.  S.  Lindsay.     Feb.  25,  1861. 

38 


594  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1863. 

His  correspondence  shows  with  how  sharp  an  eye  Cobden 
watched  his  masked  foe.  He  jealously  noted  any  post  that  was 
conferred  on  a  writer  in  the  Times ;  in  this  respect,  I  am  bound 
to  confess,  being  rather  apt  to  make  mountains  out  of  extremely 
small  molehills.^  He  told  his  friends  in  scornful  tones  of  the 
social  deference  that  was  paid  in  private  by  great  people  to  the 
famous  editor,  and  was  scandalized,  here  also  rather  unreasonably, 
to  find  him  dining  at  tables  where  every  guest  but  himself  was  an 
ambassador,  a  cabinet  minister,  or  a  bishop.  An  eminent  visitor 
from  the  United  States,  who  had  access  to  London  society,  was 
for  a  long  time  perplexed  by  the  social  attentions  that  were  be- 
stowed on  this  mysterious  being,  and  in  conversation  with  Cobden 
contrasted  the  position  of  the  press  and  its  conductors  in  England 
with  that  of  similar  personages  in  his  own  country.  "  In  Amer- 
ica," said  Cobden,  referring  to  this  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Hargreaves, 
"  the  editor  or  proprietor  puts  his  name  on  the  front  of  his  paper, 
fights  the  battles  of  his  party  openly,  shares  in  the  honors  of  its 
victories,  and  is  to  be  found  among  the  senators,  the  governors  of 
States,  etc.  But  with  iis  the  conductor  of  the  Times  preserves  a 
strict  incognito  to  his  readers,  on  the  plea  that  anonymous  writing 
is  necessary  for  preserving  his  independence,  whilst  he  inconsist- 
ently drops  the  mask  in  the  presence  of  those  who  dispense  social 
distinctions  and  dispose  of  government  patronage  —  the  very  per- 
sons towards  whom  in  the  interests  of  the  public  he  ought  to  pre- 
serve his  independence."^ 

In  November,  1863,  it  happened  that  in  his  annual  address  to 
his  constituents,  Cobden  made  a  passing  reference  to  the  land 
question,  and  Mr.  Bright  followed  with  more  on  the  same  subject. 
The  Times  promptly  accused  the  two  Gracchi  of  Rochdale  of  ex- 
citing discontent  among  the  poor,  and  proposing  a  spoliation  of 
the  owners  of  land.  The  rest  of  the  story  is  worth  telling,  if  for 
no  other  reason,  because  it  illustrates  the  kind  of  opinion  which 
public  writers  could  at  that  time  pretend  seriously  to  hold  about 
these  two  statesmen. 

By  accident  Cobden  saw  the  misrepresentation  of  which  his 
enemy  had  been  guilty,  and  he  at  once  wrote  the  following  letter 
to  the  editor  of  the  Tivies :  — 

1  It  is  worth  remembering,  however,  that  in  the  famous  Slough  speech  of  1858, 
Mr.  Disraeli  accused  his  Whig  adversaries  of  "  corrupting  the  once  pure  and  inde- 
pendent pi'ess  of  England."  "Innocent  people  in  the  country,"  he  said,  "who 
look  to  the  leading  articles  in  the  newspapers  for  advice  and  direction  —  who  look 
to  what  are  called  leading  organs  to  be  the  guardians  of  their  privileges  and  the 
directors  of  their  political  consciences  —  are  not  the  least  aware,  because  this  sort 
of  knowledge  travels  slowly,  that  leading  organs  now  are  place-hunters  of  the  court, 
and  that  the  once  stern  guardians  of  popular  rights  simper  in  the  enervating  atmos- 
phere of  gilded  saloons." 

2  To  W.  Hargreaves.     Feb.  16,  1861. 


JEt.  59.]       CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  MR.  DELANB.         595 

Sir, —  The  following  is  extracted  from  your  yesterday's  leading  article:  — 

"  Then,  though  a  small  state  may  have  something  to  lose  by  change,  it  has 
usually  more  to  gain;  and  so  it  comes  to  pass  that  it  looks  upon  any  attempt 
to  reconstruct  the  map,  or  reform  the  institutions  of  Europe,  with  something 
of  that  satisfaction  with  which  the  poor  might  regard  Mr.  BrigMs  proposition 
for  a  division  among  them  of  the  lands  of  the  rich,  or  the  Roman  plebeians 
might  hang  on  the  lips  of  Gracchus  when  he  ros&  to  expound  to  them  his  last 
plan  for  a  new  colony,  with  large  grants  of  land  to  every  citizen  who  should 
join  it." 

Without  communicating  with  Mr.  Bright,  I  trouble  you  with  a  few  words 
on  this  gross  literary  outrage,  which  concerns  not  him  alone,  but  every  public 
man.  To  utter  a  syllable  to  prove  that  the  above  assertion,  that  Mr.  Bright 
advocated  a  division  of  the  lands  of  the  rich  among  the  poor,  is  a  groundless 
and  gratuitous  falsehood,  would  be  to  offer  an  insult  to  one  who  has  done 
more  than  probably  any  other  public  man  to  popularize  those  economical  truths 
on  which  the  rights  of  property  are  based.  To  say  that  it  is  a  foul  libel  for 
which  the  publisher  is  amenable  to  law  were  beside  the  question,  because  the 
object  of  the  calumny  would  scorn  any  other  court  of  appeal,  than  that  of 
public  opinion.  But  a  wider  question  is  forced  on  our  attention  by  this  speci- 
men of  your  too  habitual  mode  of  dealing,  not  merely  with  individuals,  but 
with  the  interests  of  society.  A  tone  of  pre-eminent  unscrupulousness  in  the 
discussion  of  political  questions,  a  contempt  for  the  rights  and  feelings  of 
others,  and  a  shameless  disregard  of  the  claims  of  consistency  and  sincerity 
on  the  part  of  its  writers,  have  long  been  recognized  as  the  distinguishing 
characteristics  of  the  Times,  and  placed  it  in  marked  contrast  with  the  rest 
of  the  periodical  press,  including  the  penny  journals  of  the  metropolis  and  the 
provinces.  Its  writers  are,  I  believe,  betrayed  into  this  tone  mainly  by  their 
reliance  on  the  shield  of  an  impenetrable  secrecy.  No  gentleman  would  dream 
of  saying,  under  the  responsibility  of  his  signature,  what  your  writer  said  of 
Mr.  Bright  yesterday.  I  will  not  stop  to  remark  on  the  deterioration  of  char- 
acter which  follows  when  a  man  of  education  and  rare  ability  thus  lowers 
himself  —  ay,  even  in  his  own  eyes  —  to  a  condition  of  moral  cowardice  ;  for 
will  he  deny  that  if  he  were  to  meet  Mr.  Bright  in  the  club,  or  the  House  of 
Commons,  with  the  knowledge  that  his  secret  was  divulged,  he  would  cower 
with  conscious  inferiority  before  the  man  he  had  stabbed  in  the  dark  ?  This, 
however,  is  his  own  affair.  But  there  is  another  aspect  of  the  subject  in  which 
the  public  is  directly  interested. 

In  the  present  management  of  the  Times  there  is  an  essential  departure 
from  the  plan  on  which  it  was  conducted  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago,  which 
distinguishes  it  from  all  other  journals.  They  who  associate  in  the  higher 
political  circles  of  the  metropolis  know  that  the  chief  editor  and  the  manager 
of  the  Times,  while  still  maintaining  a  strict  incognito  towards  the  public, 
drops  the  mask  with  very  sufficient  reasons  in  the  presence  of  those  powerful 
classes  who  are  at  once  the  dispensers  of  social  distinction,  and  (on  which  I 
might  have  something  to  say)  of  the  patronage  of  the  Government.  We  all 
know  the  man  whose  fortune  is  derived  from  the  Times ;  we  know  its  mana- 
ger ;  its  only  avowed  and  responsible  editor —  he  of  the  semi-official  corre- 
spondence with  Sir  Charles  Napier  in  the  Baltic  —  through  whose  hands, 
though  he  never  pen  a  line  himself,  every  slander  in  its  leaders  must  pass  — 
is  as  well  known  to  us  as  the  chief  official  at  the  Home  Office.  Now  the  ques- 
tion is  forced  on  us,  whether  we  who  are  behind  the  scenes  are  not  bound,  in 
the  interests  of  the  uninitiated  public,  and  as  the  only  certain  mode  of  abat- 
ing such  outrages  as  this,  to  lift  the  veil  and  dispel  the  illusion  by  which  the 
Times  is  enabled  to  pursue  this  game  of  secrecy  to  the  public,  and  servility  to 
the  Government  —  a  game  (I  purposely  use  the  word)  which  secures  for  it^ 
connections  the  corrupt  advantages,  while  denying  to  the  public  its  own 
boasted  benefits  of  the  anonymous  system. 


596  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1863. 

It  will  be  well  for  public  men  to  decide,  each  in  his  own  case  (for  my- 
self I  have  no  doubt  on  the  subject),  whether,  in  response  to  such  attacks  as 
these,  they  will  continue  to  treat  the  Times  as  an  impersonal  myth ;  or  whether 
on  the  contrary,  they  will  in  future  summon  the  responsible  editor,  manager, 
or  proprietor  to  the  bar  of  public  opinion,  and  hold  him  up  by  name  to  the 
obloquy  which  awaits  the  traducer  and  the  calumniator  in  every  other  walk 
of  social  and  political  life.  I  am,  &c., 

Richard  Cobden. 

MiDHURST,  December  i,  1863. 

This  letter  was  not  inserted  in  the  Times,  and  the  Editor  wrote 
to  Cobden  a  reply,  of  which  the  following  is  the  substance :  — 

The  Times  Office,  Dec.  7,  1863. 

The  Editor  of  the  Times  presents  his  compliments  to  Mr.  Cobden,  and 
encloses  a  proof  of  his  letter,  which,  though  it  arrived  by  Saturday's  post, 
only  reached  the  Editor's  hands  last  evening.  Ho  could  not  then  give  it 
immediate  consideration,  but,  in  deference  to  Mr.  Cobden's  name,  he  an- 
nounced that  it  should  be  published  to-morrow. 

On  reading  it,  however,  this  morning,  he  thinks  —  and  he  trusts  Mr. 
Cobden  will,  on  reperusal,  agree  with  him  —  that  Mr.  Cobden  has  no  right 
to  expect  him,  upon  a  pretext  entirely  irrelevant,  to  publish  a  series  of  most 
offensive  and  unfounded  imputations  upon  liimself  and  his  friends. 

....  The  facts,  however,  are  shortly  these  :  —  Messrs.  Cobden  and 
Bright  make  two  speeches  at  Rochdale,  wl)ich  are  reported  in  the  Tivies  at 
unusual  length,  and  with  extraordinary  promptitude.  These  speeches  are 
discussed  elaborately  in  two  leading  articles  on  successive  days,  and  in  each 
of  them  certain  passages  are  interpreted  as  recommending  a  repartition  of  the 
land  among  the  poor.  Messrs.  Cobden  and  Bright  are  expressly  challenged 
to  disavow  this  interpretation  if  it  misrepresents  their  meaning  ;  but  they 
make  no  reply,  and  apparently  accept  it  as  conveying  their  true  intention. 

The  speeches,  as  reported,  also  remain  before  the  public  for  upwards  of  a 
week,  and  the  interpretation  put  upon  them  by  the  Times  provokes  no  adverse 
remark.  At  last  an  article  appears  upon  a  totally  different  sidiject,  in  which 
an  allusion  is  made  in  a  single  phrase  to  Mr.  Bright's  supposed  opinions,  and 
Mr.  Cobden  pounces  upon  this  phrase,  not  that  he  may  discuss  the  true  inter- 
pretation of  Mr.  Bright's  expressions,  but  that  he  may  make  a  vague  and  most 
offensive  attack  upon  the  Times  and  its  conductors. 

The  Editor  declines  to  permit  the  Times  to  be  made  the  means  of  dissemi- 
nating imputations  which  he  knows  to  be  unfounded,  and  which  are  entirely 
irrelevant  to  the  question  at  issue. 

The  sensation  was  tremendous  in  Fleet  Street  and  Pall  Mall, 
when  Cobden  published  his  rejoinder,  not  to  the  impersonal 
Editor,  but  to  Mr.  Delane  in  his  own  proper  name. 

To  John  T.  Delane,  Esq. 

Sir,  —  You  and  I  have  been  long  personally  acquainted  ;  your  handwriting 
is  known  to  me,  and  I  know  you  to  be  the  chief  Editor  of  the  Times.  Under 
such  circumstances  I  cannot  allow  you  to  suppress  your  individuality,  and 
shield  yourself  under  the  third  person  of  the  editorial  nominative,  in  a 
correspondence  affecting  your  personal  responsibility  for  a  scandalous  asper- 
sion on  myself  (as  I  now  learn  for  the  first  time  from  you)  as  well  as  on 
Mr.  Bright. 


JEx.  59.]       CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  MR.  DELANE.         597 

Your  refusal  to  publish  ray  former  letter  is  a  matter  so  entirely  within 
your  own  province,  that  I  have  nothing  to  say  upon  it,  except  to  congratulate 
myself  on  the  recent  revolution  in  the  newspaper  wt)rld,  which  renders  your 
decision  comparatively  harmless.  A  few  years  ago  the  Times  possessed  almost 
a  monopoly  of  publicity.  Four  fifths  of  the  daily  newspaper  circulation 
issued  from  its  pr^ss.  Now  it  constitutes,  probably,  one  tenth  of  our  diurnal 
journalism,  and  my  letter  will  be  only  the  more  generally  read  from  having 
been  excluded  from  your  columns. 

But  your  letter  proceeds  to  offer  some  most  singular  arguments  in  justifica- 
tion of  your  attack  on  Mr.  Bright.  You  state  that  your  journal  had  previously 
contained  two  leading  articles,  casting  the  same  imputation  both  on  him  and 
myself,  that  you  had  challenged  us  to  disavow  your  interpretation  of  our 
speeches,  and  as  we  had  failed  to  do  so,  you  accepted  our  silence  as  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  truth  of  your  interpretation,  —  in  other  words,  as  proof 
of  our  guilt !  Here  we  have,  in  a  compendious  form,  an  exhibition  of  those 
qualities  which  characterize  the  editorial  management  of  the  Times,  —  of  that 
arrogant  self-complacency,  logical  incoherence,  and  moral  bewilderment,  which 
a  too  long  career  of  impunity  and  irresponsibility  could  alone  engender. 

Now  that  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  this  reasoning,  if  such  it  may  be  termed, 
is  an  inordinate  display  of  what  I  must  call  Times  egotism.  Notwithstanding 
that  your  journal  has  now  but  a  fractional  part  of  the  daily  newspaper  circu- 
lation, you  complacently  assume  that  all  the  world  are  your  constant  readers. 
The  Times  never  enters  my  house,  except  by  rare  accident.  This  I  know  to 
be  also  the  case  with  Mr.  Bright,  who  will,  in  all  probability,  never  have  seen 
your  attack  until  he  reads  it  in  my  letter.  It  is  only  during  the  Session,  at 
the  Club,  that  I  am  in  the  habit  of  seeing  your  paper.  The  chance  visit  of  a 
friend  last  Friday  placed  in  my  hand  the  Times  of  the  previous  day,  when 
that  scandalous  paragraph  caught  my  eye  which  formed  the  text  of  my  letter 
to  you.  I  was  entirely  ignorant  of  the  two  former  attacks,  which,  by  a  droll 
process  of  reasoning,  you  now  invite  me  to  accept  as  a  justification  of  the 
third.  Now,  let  me  ask  you  to  descend  for  a  minute  from  your  editorial 
chair,  while  I  illustrate  this  logic  by  a  hypothetical  case  put  to  Mr.  Delane,  the 
barrister.  Suppose  that  the  constituents  of  Mr.  Bright  were  to  indict  your 
publisher  for  defaming  their  member,  and  that  it  was  proposed  in  a  consulta- 
tion of  lawyers,  at  which  you  were  present,  to  set  up  as  a  plea  of  justification 
at  the  trial  that  the  same  libel  had  been  twice  previously  published  against 
both  Mr.  Bright  and  Mr.  Cobden,  —  would  it  fail  to  occur  to  you  that,  fn  the 
eyes  of  an  honest  judge  and  jurj^  this  defence  would  be  considered  an  aggra- 
vation of  the  offence  1 

But  we  will  assume,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  Mr.  Bright  and  I  are 
regular  subscribers  to,  and  diligent  readers  of,  your  newspaper.  Is  it  seriously 
contended  that  as  often  as  you  choose  to  pervert  the  sense  of  our  speeches, 
and  charge  us  with  schemes  of  public  robbery,  the  onus  lies  with  us  to  dis- 
prove the  imputation,  and  that,  neglecting  to  do  so,  we  have  no  right  to  com- 
plain if  we  are  thenceforth  treated  as.  felons  ?  Would  it  not  occur^'to  any  one 
but  an  editor  of  the  Times  that,  before  we  \'iolate  the  ninth  commandment, 
the  obligation  lies  with  us  to  know  that  we  are  not  bringing  a  false  accusa- 
tion against  our  neighbor  ? 

Now,  a  word  upon  the  subject  which  has  given  rise  to  this  correspondence. 
Nobody  knows  better  than  yourself,  except  the  writer  who  actually  penned 
the  scandalous  passage  in  question,  that  this  charge  of  wishing  to  divide  the 
land  of  the  rich  among  the  poor,  when  levelled  at  Mr.  Bright,  is  nothing  l)ut 
the  resort  to  a  stale  rhetorical  trick  (though  the  character  of  the  libel  is  not 
on  that  account  altered)  to  draw  away  public  attention  from  the  real  issue, 
and  thus  escape  from  the  discussion  of  a  serious,  but,  for  the  moment,  an  incon- 
venient public  topic.     In  order  to  trail  a  red  herring  across  the  true-  scent  the 


598  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1863. 

cry  of  spoliation  was  raised.  You  and  your  writers  cannot  be  ignorant  that 
the  laws  and  political  institutions  of  this  country  tend  to  promote  the  ag- 
glomeration of  agricultural  land  in  a  constantly  lessening  number  of  hands  :  — 
you  and  I  know,  by  a  joint  experience,  which  neither  of  us  is  likely  to  have 
forgotten,  how  great  are  the  obstacles  which  the  law  interposes  to  the  Iree 
transfer  of  landed  property  in  this  country.  Now,  the  policy  which  sustains 
this  state  of  things  is  a  public  question,  which  is  not  only  fairly  open  to  dis- 
cussion, but  invites  the  earnest  attention  and  study  of  public  men.  In  this, 
as  in  every  other  human  concern,  we  must  bring  the  matter  to  the  test  of 
experience,  and  in  no  way  can  this  be  more  effectually  done  than  by  a  com- 
parison between  the  condition  of  the  great  majority  of  the  agricultural  popu- 
lation in  this  and  other  countries.  The  subject  of  our  land  laws  has  engaged 
the  attention  of  eminent  statesmen,  and  of  our  highest  legal  authorities ;  but 
I  will  venture  to  add  —  and  it  is  all  I  shall  condescend  to  say  in  refutation 
of  your  aspersions — that  if  there  are  two  persons  who  beyond  all  others 
have  given  pledges  throughout  an  ardent  discussion  of  kindred  topics  during 
a  quarter  of  a  century,  that  in  debating  the  question  of  the  tenure  and  trans- 
fer of  land  they  would  observe  the  restraints  of  law,  justice,  and  political 
economy,  they  are  the  men  whom  your  journal  has  dared  to  charge  with  the 
advocacy  of  a  scheme  for  robbing  the  landowners  of  their  property  for  the 
benefit  of  the  poor. 

Judging  from  past  experience,  this  intrusion  of  a  gross  personality  will 
tend  only  to  attract  public  notice  to  a  matter  which  it  was  meant  to  put  out 
of  sight.  It  has  been  the  fate  of  the  Times  to  help  forward  every  cause  it  has 
opposed.  By  its  truculent,  I  had  almost  said  ruffianly,  attacks  on  every 
movement  while  in  the  weakness  of  infancy,  it  has  roused  to  increased  effoits 
the  energies  of  those  it  has  assailed  ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  it  has  awakened 
the  attention  of  a  languid  public,  and  attracted  the  sympathy  of  fair  and 
manly  minds.  It  is  thus  that  snch  public  measures  as  the  abolition  of  the 
Corn  Laws,  the  repeal  of  the  Taxes  on  Knowledge,  and  the  negotiation  of 
the  Treaty  of  Commerce  with  France,  triumphed  in  spite  of  its  virulent,  per- 
tinacious, and  unscrupulous  opposition  ;  until,  at  last,  I  am  tending  to  the 
conviction  that  there  are  three  conditions  only  requisite  for  the  success  of 
any  great  project  of  reform, — namely,  a  good  cause,  persevering  advocates, 
and  the  hostility  of  the  Times. 

I  shall  forward  this  correspondence  for  publication  in  the  Rochdale  Observer ^ 
that  it  may  at  least  be  perused  by  the  community  which  has  the  greatest 
interest  in  a  controversy  which  concerns  the  reputation  of  Mr.  Bright  and 
myself.  I  am,  sir,  your  obedient  servant, 

R.  COBDEN. 
MiDHURST,  Dec.  9,  1863. 

To  this  Mr.  Delane  replied  (Dec.  11)  that  it  was  quite  true  that 
they  had  long  been  personally  acquainted ;  that  there  was  no  need 
to  identify  his  handwriting ;  and  that  he  had  no  desire  to  deny 
his  personal  responsibility  for  what  Cobden  was  pleased  to  call 
his  "  scandalous  aspersions."  Proceeding  to  vindicate  himself, 
Mr.  Delane  asked  whether  it  was  egotistic  or  unreasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  one  who  had  pounced  so  promptly  upon  a  single  phrase 
in  an  article  of  much  inferiof  interest  to  himself,  should  have  read 
the  articles  which  discussed  his  own  speech  ?  Could  he  be  ex- 
pected to  know  that  a  gentleman  who  once  preferred  a  single 
copy  of  the  Times  "  to  aU  the  books  of  Thucydides  "  did  not  admit 


iET.  59.]  CORRESPONDENCE   WITH   MR.   DELANE.  599 

the  Times  to  his  house  ?  ^     The  pith  of  the  vindication  was  in  the 
following  paragraph :  — 

You  attribute  to  the  Times  a  deliberate  misrepresentation  of  your  meaning, 
and  that  of  Mr.  Bright,  as  to  the  means  of  amending  the  unequal  distribution 
of  land  between  the  rich  and  the  poor.  I  repeat  that  certain  passage.s  in  your 
speeches  will,  in  my  opinion,  bear  no  other  iriterpretation  than  that  ascribed 
to  them.  If  you  merely  intended  to  recommend  measures  for  facilitating  the 
conveyance  of  land,  as  your  reference  to  our  transaction  at  Ascot  would  sug- 
gest, your  language  was  the  most  strangely  exaggerated  that  was  ever  used  to 
further  a  humble  instalment  of  law  reform.  If  you  had  read  the  Times,  in- 
stead of  condemning  it  unread,  you  would  have  known  that  it  has  always 
advocated  the  siniYjlification  of  means  for  the  transfer  of  land,  and  that  its 
advocacy  has  not  been  altogether  unsuccessful.  But  just  as  no  simplification 
oi  conveyances  will  compel  the  rich  to  sell  land  or  enable  the  poor  to  buy  it, 
so  no  legislative  measure  will  render  the  purchase  of  land  a  profitable  invest- 
ment for  the  poor. 

The  possession,  the  transfer,  and  the  tenure  of  land  are,  however,  public 
questions,  which  are  best  discussed,  not  between  Mr.  Cobden  and  Mr.  Delane, 
but  as  it  has  always  been  the  practice  of  the  English  press  to  discuss  them  — 
anonymously.  That  practice  was  not  invented  by  me  ;  it  will  not  be  de- 
stroyed by  yourself.  It  has  approved  itself  to  the  judgment  of  all,  whether 
statesmen  or  publicists,  who  have  appreciated  the  freedom  and  independence 
of  the  press  ;  and  I  believe  it  to  be  essential  to  the  interests  not  only  of  the 
press,  but  of  the  public. 

Cobden,  however,  insisted  on  carrying  on  the  controversy  with 
Mr.  Delane :  — 

To  John  T.  Delane,  Esq. 

Sir,  —  I  have  received  the  letter  dated  from  your  private  residence,  and 
bearing  your  own  signiature,  in  which  you  take  on  yourself  personally  the 
responsibility  of  the  interpretation  put  by  the  Times  on  the  speeches  of  Mr. 
Bright  and  myself  at  Kochdale  —  namely,  that  we  proposed  "  a  division  among 
the  poor  of  the  lands  of  the  rich."     Your  letter  to  me  says  :  — 

"  You  attribute  to  the  Times  a  deliberate  misrepresentation  of  your  mean- 

1  This  refers  to  an  expression  of  Cobden's  which  was  a  standing  joke  against  him 
in  those  days.  At  a  meeting  of  the  Manchester  Athenaeum  (Dec,  27,  1850),  Cobdeu 
used  the  following  language  :  —  "I  take  it  that,  as  a  rule,  grown-up  men,  in  these 
busy  times,  read  very  little  else  but  newspapers.  I  tliink  the  reading  of  volumes 
is  almost  the  excei)tion  ;  and  the  man  who  habitually  has  between  his  fingers  400 
or  500  newspapers  in  the  course  of  the  year  —  that  is,  daily  and  weekly  newspapers 
—  and  is  engaged  pretty  actively  in  business,  or  in  political  or  public  life  —  depend 
upon  it,  whatever  he  may  say,  or  like  to  have  it  thought  to  the  contrary,  he  reads 
very  little  else,  as  a  rule,  but  the  current  periodical  literature  ;  and  I  doubt  if  a 
man  with  limited  time  could  read  anything  else  that  would  be  .much  more  useful  to 
him.  I  believe  it  has  been  said  that  one  copy  of  the  Times  contains  more  usefid 
information  than  the  whole  of  the  historical  books  of  Thucydides  —  (laughter) ;  — 
and  I  am  very  much  inclined  to  think  that  to  an  Englishman  or  an  American  of 
the  present  day  that  is  strictly  true."  The  opinion  may  be  sound  or  not,  but  the 
expression  was  a  slip,  because  it  showed  that  the  speaker  knew  little  about  the 
author  on  whose  comparative  value  he  was  hinting  a  judgment.  Too  much  was 
made  of  the  slip  by  journalists  and  collegians  who  knew  little  more  about  Thucydi- 
des than  did  Cobden  himself,  but  who  now  wrote  as  if  that  rather  troublesome 
author  were  the  favorite  companion  of  their  leisure  hours. 


600  I^IFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1863. 

ing,  and  that  of  Mr.  Bright,  as  to  the  means  of  amending  the  unequal  distri- 
bution of  the  land  between  the  rich  and  the  poor.  I  repeat  that  certain 
passages  in  your  speeches  will,  in  my  opinion,  bear  no  other  interpretation 
than  that  ascribed  to  them." 

This  is  a  grave  accusation.  I  am  told  that,  if  proved,  it  would  bring  Mr. 
Bright  and  myself  within  the  provisions  of  the  Act  57tji  Geo.  III.  cap.  19, 
and  render  us  liable  to  the  penal  consequences  of  transportation  for  seven 
years. 

I  will  not  believe  that  you  can  be  so  wanting  in  the  respect  due  to  others, 
as  well  as  yourself,  as  to  have  addressed  this  accusation  to  me,  unless  with  the 
belief  that  you  have  evidence  to  substantiate  it. 

1  call  on  you  to  give  me  those  "  certain  passages  "  to  which  you  refer,  and 
which  are  really  now  the  only  question  at  issue  between  you  and  me.  That 
there  may  be  no  excuse  or  ground  for  delay,  I  accept  the  report  which  appeared 
in  your  paper  as  an  accurate  version  of  my  speech ;  and  to  aid  you  in  your 
task  I  have  cut  from  the  Times  the  entire  passage  which  contains  all  that  I 
said  in  reference  to  the  condition  of  the  people  generally,  or  to  the  agricultural 
population,  and  the  land  question  in  particular.  But  let  it  be  distinctly  un- 
derstood that  I  do  not  confine  you  to  this  extract,  but  that  I  give  you  the 
entire  range  of  my  speech. 

Before  giving  the  passage  I  will  say  a  few  words,  which,  although  I  do  not 
in  the  slightest  degree  claim  for  them  the  character  of  evidence,  may  have 
interest  in  some  quarters. 

It  is  known  that  I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  writing  a  word  beforehand  of 
what  I  speak  in  public.  Like  other  speakers,  practice  has  given  me  as  perfect 
self-possession  in  the  presence  of  an  audience  as  it"  I  were  writing  in  my 
closet.  Now,  my  ever-constant  and  overruling  thought  while  addressing  a 
public  meeting,  the  one  necessity  which  long  experience  of  the  arts  of  contro- 
versialists has  impressed  on  my  mind,  is  to  avoid  the  possibility  of  being 
misrepresented,  and  prevent  my  opponents  from  raising  a  false  issue  —  a  trick 
of  logic  as  old  as  the  time  of  Aristotle.  If  I  have,  as  some  favorable  critics 
are  pleased  to  think,  sometimes  spoken  with  clearness,  it  is  more  owing  to 
this  ever-present  fear  of  misrepresentation  than  any  other  cause  :  —  it  is  thus 
that  the  most  noxious  things  in  life  may  have  their  uses.  When  in  my 
speech  at  Rochdale  I  came  to  touch  upon  the  subject  of  the  land,  the  thought 
instantly  flashed  upon  me  —  and  none  but  the  public  speaker  knows  with 
what  velocity  thoughts  move  when  in  the  presence  of  4000  listeners  —  that  I 
was  dealing  with  a  question  about  which  there  is  a  superstition  in  England, 
unknown  elsew^here,  and  that  the  enemy  would  raise  the  cry  of  agrarianism 
against  me,  and  hence  my  denunciation  of  agrarian  outrage,  which  will  be 
found  in  the  following  extract.  Had  I  been  inspired  with  the  faculty  of 
second-sight,  and  seen  the  Editor  of  the  Times  sitting  bodily  penning  his 
criticism  on  my  speech,  I  could  not  have  more  completely  refuted  and  con- 
founded in  anticipation  the  charge  now  brought  against  me. 

The  following  is  the  passage  referred  to  :  — 

"  It  has  been  a  fashion  of  late  to  talk  of  an  extension  of  the  franchise  as  some- 
thing not  to  be  tolerated,  because  it  is  assumed  that  the  mass  of  the  community  are 
not  fitted  to  take  a  part  in  government,  and  people  point  to  America  and  France, 
and  other  countries,  and  draw  comparisons  between  this  country  and  other  coun- 
tries. Now,  I  hope  I  shall  not  be  considered  revolutionary,  because  at  my  age  I 
don't  want  any  revolutions.  They  won't  serve  me,  I  am  sure,  or  anybody  that  be- 
longs to  me,  England  may  compare  very  favorably  with  most  other  countries  if 
you  draw  the  line  in  society  tolerably  high  ;  and  if  you  compare  the  condition  of 
the  rich  and  the  upper  classes  of  England,  or  a  considerable  portion  of  the  middle 
classes,  with  the  same  classes  abroad.  I  don't  think  a  rich  man,  barring  the  cli- 
mate, which  is  not  very  good,  could  be  very  much  happier  anywhere  else  than  in 
England  ;  but  when  my  opponents  treat  this  question  of  the  franchise  as  one  that 


iET.  59.]       CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  MR.  DELANE.         601 

threatens  to  bring  the  masses  of  the  people  down  from  their  present  state  to  the  level 
of  other  nations,  1  say  that  I  have  travelled  in  most  civilized  countiies,  and  that 
the  masses  of  my  fellow-countrymen  do  not  compare  so  favorably  with  the  masses 
of  other  countries  as  I  could  wish.  I  find  in  other  countries  a  greater  proportion  of 
people  owning  property  than  there  are  in  England.  1  don't  know  a  Protestant 
community  in  the  world  where  the  masses  of  the  people  are  so  illiterate  as  in  Eng- 
land. These  are  not  bad  tests  of  the  condition  of  a  people.  It  is  no  use  your 
talking  of  your  army  and  navy,  your  exports  and  your  unports  —  it  is  no  use  tell- 
ing me  you  have  a  small  portion  of  your  people  exceedingly  well  off.  I  want  to 
biing  the  test  to  a  comparison  of  the  majority  of  the  people  with  the  majority  of 
the  people  in  other  countries.  Now,  I  say  with  regard  to  some  things  in  foreign 
countries  we  don't  compare  favorably.  The  condition  of  the  English  peasantry  has 
no  parallel  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  (Hear.)  You  have  no  other  peasantry  but 
that  of  England  which  is  entirely  divorced  from  the  land.  There  is  no  other 
country  in  the  world  where  you  will  not  find  men  holding  the  plough  and  turning 
up  the  furrow  upon  their  own  freehold.  /  don't  want  any  agrarian  outrages  by 
which  we  shoidd  change  all  this,  but  this  I  find,  and  it  is  quite  consistent  with 
human  nature,  that  wherever  I  go  the  condition  of  the  people  is  generally  pretty 
good,  in  comparison  with  the  power  they  have  to  take  care  of  themselves ;  and  if 
you  have  a  class  entirely  destitute  of  political  jwwer,  while  in  another  country 
they  possess  it,  they  will  be  treated  there  with  more  consideration,  they  will 
have  greater  advantages,  they  will  be  better  educated,  and  have  a  better  chance 
of  possessing  property,  than  in  a  country  where  they  are  deprived  of  political 
power.     (Hear.)  " 

You  will  observe  in  the  above  passage  from  my  speech,  taken  from  your 
own  report,  that  I  use  the  words,  "  I  don't  want  any  agrarian  outrages  by 
which  we  should  change  all  this  ; "  and  now  we  must  appeal  to  the  authority 
of  the  lexicographer.  H'  you  turn  to  Webster's  ((j^uarto)  Dictionary  you  will 
find  the  word  "  agrarian  "  interpreted,  on  the  authority  of  Burke,  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

"  Relating  to  lands.  Denoting  or  pertaining  to  an  equal  division  of  lands ; 
as,  the  agrarian  laws  of  Rome,  which  distributed  the  conquered  and  other 
public  lands  equally  among  all  the  citizens,  limiting  the  quantity  which  each 
might  enjoy."  Again,  in  the  same  Dictionary  the  word  "  agrarianism ''  is 
given  as  "  an  equal  division  of  lands  or  property,  or  the  principles  of  those  who 
favor  such  a  division." 

Thus,  in  repudiating  the  agrarian  system,  I  repudiated,  in  pure  and  un- 
questionable English,  according  to  Burke,  the  principles  of  those  who  favor 
an  equal  division  of  land  ;  I  repudiated  the  agrarian  laws  of  Rome  ;  and  yet, 
in  spite  of  this,  you  charge  me  and  Mr.  Bright  with  "  proposing  a  division 
among  the  poor  of  the  lands  of  the  rich,"  and  you  associate  us  with  Gracchus 
in  schemes  of  socialistic  spoliation. 

Mr.  Delane  in  reply  (Dec.  1 6)  insisted  that  the  passage  to  which 
Codden  had  referred  him,  did  in  his  opinion  convey  a  proposition 
for  the  division  among  the  poor  of  the  lands  of  the  rich.  "  You 
seem  to  assume,"  he  said,  "  that  I  charged  you  with  proposing 
that  this  division  should  be  accomplished  by  violence.  But  your 
own  words  were  there  to  prove  to  me  that  such  was  not  your 
meaning,  and  to  confute  me  instantly  if  I  had  attempted  to  at- 
tach that  meaning  to  it."  This,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  moment, 
ruined  Mr.  Delane's  case,  for  the  Times  had  distinctly  and  in 
terms  described  the  proposed  change  as  the  work  of  violence. 
Meanwhile  he  went  on  to  say  that  it  could  be  effected  by  com- 
pulsory partition  after  death,  as  in  France  :  — 


602  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1863. 

A  similar  measure  proposed  by  yourself,  or  by  Mr.  Bright,  and  carried  in  a 
Parliament  elected  principally  by  the  peasantry  whom  you  desire  to  eni'ran- 
chise,  because  they  woukL  then  "  have  a  better  chance  of  having  property," 
would  in  two  or  three  generations  not  only  check  the  accumulation  of  land 
in  few  hands,  but  would  break  up  all  existing  estates,  great  or  small,  and  thus 
largely  increase  the  number  of  proprietors.  In  another  generation,  probably, 
the  peasant  himself  would  "  turn  up  the  furrow  on  his  own  freehold,"  and  be 
no  longer  "  divorced  from  the  land." 

You  suggest  so  obviously  that  it  is  by  legislative  measures  —  rendered 
possible  by  giving  political  power  to  the  peasantry  —  you  propose  to  "  amend 
the  unecpial  distribution  of  the  land  between  the  "  rich  and  the  poor,"  that 
no  one  would  think  of  charging  you  with  endeavoring  to  effect  this  great 
change  by  violence. 

It  was  clear  that  Mr.  Delane  had  now  surrendered  himself 
into  the  hands  of  his  adversary.  Cobden  did  not  allow  him 
to  escape.  "For  the  first  time,"  he  replied  (Dec.  18),  "you  now 
disavow  having  imputed  to  Mr.  Bright  and  myself  the  design 
of  promoting  by  violent,  illegal,  or  immoral  means  a  redistribu- 
tion of  the  land  of  this  country."  Grammar,  logic,  and  common 
sense,  he  said,  all  revolted  against  the  Editor's  attempt  to  show 
the  connection  between  his  former  language  and  his  new  ac- 
cusation. 

You  now  profess  only  to  impute  to  us  the  design  of  favoring  the  equal 
division  of  landed  property  among  all  the  children  at  the  death  of  a  proprie- 
tor. But  this  will  not  correspond  with  your  reiterated  charge  that  we  con- 
templated a  division  "  among  the  poor  of  the  land  of  the  rich."  What  you 
now  affect  to  consider  to  be  our  object  is  the  division  of  the  land  of  the  rich 
equally  among  the  children  of  the  rich.  1  must  bring  the  question  to  the 
test  of  your  own  language. 

In  your  leading  article  of  December  3,  you  alleged  that  the  small  states  of 
the  Continent  regarded  a  congress  with  the  ''  satisfaction  with  which  the  poor 
might  regard  Mr.  Bright's  proposition  for  dividing  among  them  the  lands  of 
the  rich."  I  now  infer,  from  your  new  interpretation,  that  I  am  asked  to 
construe  this  as  meaning  only  the  satisfaction  with  which  the  children  of  rich 
landowners  would  regard  a  proposition  for  dividing  among  them  the  lands 
of  their  fathers. 

Again,  in  your  letter  to  me  of  December  7  you  stated,  "  These  speeches  are 
discussed  elaborately  in  two  leading  articles  on  successive  days,  and  in  each 
of  them  certain  passages  are  interpreted  as  recommending  a  repartition  of  the 
land  among  the  poor.'^  Now,  the  word  partition  or  repartition  means  simply 
a  division,  and  not  a  bequest  or  inheritance,  and  yet,  with  our  dictionaries  at 
hand,  you  now  ask  me  to  interpret  the  "  repartition  of  the  land  among 
the  poor,"  as  only  meaning  that  Mr.  Bright  and  I  wished  to  compel  rich  land- 
owners at  their  death  to  leave  their  estates  equally  among  all  their  children. 
And  in  your  letter  to  me  of  December  11  you  "repeat"  the  assertion  that 
"  certain  passages  "  of  our  speeches  "  bear  no  other  interpretation  than  that 
ascribed  to  them."  Now  up  to  that  date  you  had  put  no  other  interpretation 
on  those  speeches  than  that  they  advocated  the  "  division  of  the  land  of  the 
rich  among  the  poor."  The  poor  we  are  now  told  to  interpret  to  mean  only 
the  children  of  rich  landowners  ! 

Then,  I  suppose,  we  are  expected  to  forget  that  you  coupled  us  with  Grac- 
chus, and  the  agrarian,  system  of  Rome. 


JEt.  59.]      CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  MR.  DELANE.  603 

No  ;  in  the  teeth  of  all  these  proofs  in  plain,  unmistakable  English  to 
the  contrary,  I  should  be  sacrificing  truth  to  courtesy  were  1  to  aiiect  to 
concur  in  this  new  version  of  your  language,  which  does  not  admit  of  two 
meanings. 

This  was  sufficiently  pungent;  but  it  was  not  the  most  decisive 
blow.  On  the  evening  of  the  day  on  which  he  wrote  the  above 
letter,  Cobden  found  in  the  Daily  News  what  it  is  odd  that  he 
should  not  have  sought  earlier,  namely,  a  passage  from  one  of  the 
previous  articles  in  the  Times  to  which  Mr.  Delane  had  referred. 
"This  language,"  the  Times  had  said  (Nov.  26),  "so  often  repeated, 
and  so  calculated  to  excite  discontent  among  the  poor  and  half- 
informed,  has  really  only  one  intelligible  meaning.  '  Eeduce  the 
electoral  franchise ;  for  when  you  have  done  so  you  will  obtain 
an  assembly  which  will  seize  on  the  estates  of  the  proprietors  of 
land,  and  divide  the7n  gratuitously  among  the  poor!  ....  It  may 
be  right  to  reduce  the  franchise,  hut  certainly  not  as  a  step  to  spo- 
liation." 

Now,  said  Cobden,  "  you  will  at  once  perceive  that,  unless  this 
language  be  unreservedly  recalled,  it  makes  the  statement  in  your 
last  letter  simply  a  mockery  and  an  untruth."  Mr.  Delane,  de- 
claring that  the  passage  taken  without  its  context  does  not  con- 
vey the  same  meaning  as  when  taken  with  it,  and  enclosing  a 
copy  of  the  article  in  full,  then  begged  to  retire  from  the  personal 
part  of  the  controversy. 

There  can  now  be  very  little  difference  of  opiniqn  among  candid 
men  as  to  the  merits  of  the  controversy.  It  is  hardly  possible  to 
deny  two  propositions ;  first,  that  the  interpretation  by  the  Times 
of  what  had  been  said  at  Eochdale  was  plainly  unjust,  heedless, 
and  calumnious;  second,  that  Mr.  Delane's  attempt  to  explain 
away  the  imputation  of  violence  and  spoliation  was  wholly  un- 
successful. No  editor  ever  stumbled  into  a  more  palpable  scrape, 
nor  chose  a  less  fortunate  way  out  of  it.  The  simple  and  manly 
course  which  the  Editor  of  the  Times  ought  to  have  taken  was  to 
say  something  of  this  kind :  —  "  My  article  was  written  in  good 
faith.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  the  writer  may  have  been  led 
by  certain  conscious  or  unconscious  prepossessions  against  the 
speakers  to  read  something  in  Mr.  Bright's  speech  and  in  yours 
which  was  not  literally  there.  I  now  see,  looking  at  the  speeches 
more  carefully,  that  your  words  could  not  bear  the  construction 
that  was  put  upon  them,  and  that  your  complaint  is  justified.  I 
will,  as  Editor,  publicly  retract  an  imputation  which  I  now  per- 
ceive to  have  been  errimeous." 

As  this  apology  was  not  forthcoming,  Cobden  was  entirely  jus- 
tified in  publicly  seizing  Mr.  Delane  by  name,  and  fixing  upon 
him  personally  the  misdemeanor  for  which  he  contumaciously 
made  himself  answerable.     Anonymous  journalism  may  be  tol- 


604  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1863. 

erated  and  defended  on  account  of  certain  incidental  conveniences 
—  Cobden  himself  wrote  plenty  of  anonymous  articles  —  but  the 
system  cannot  be  invoked  to  protect  the  writer  or  the  conductor 
of  a  public  print  from  liability  to  be  called  publicly  to  account  in 
case  of  persistent  and  proved  misrepresentation.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  can  hardly  be  denied  that  Cobden  put  himself  in  the 
wrong  by  accusing  the  conductors  of  the  Times  of  corruption. 
When  he  talked  of  the  "  corrupt  advantages  "  of  servility  to  the 
Government,  he  made  an  imputation  which  he  could  not  prove 
(as  he  found  out  when  he  tried  to  get  up  a  case  for  Parliament), 
and  which  was  in  fact  not  justified.  The  conductors  of  the  Times 
did  not  praise  the  friends  and  abuse  the  enemies  of  the  Govern- 
ment, in  order  to  have  one  of  their  contributors  sent  to  the  Ba- 
/hamas,  or  another  made  a  magistrate  at  Bow  Street.  The  Times 
was  Palmerstonian  because  the  country  was  Palmerstonian,  just 
as  by-and-by  it  became  Derbyite  because  the  country  seemed 
Derbyite.  It  condemned  the  talk  of  Cobden  and  Mr.  Bright  about 
the  land,  because  the  capitalists  and  the  country  gentlemen  and 
the  great  nobles  were  frightened  out  of  their  senses  by  such  talk. 
The  conductor  of  a  newspaper  is  entirely  at  liberty  to  choose  what 
constituency  he  will  attract.  It  pleased  the  Times  at  that  day  to 
domesticate  itself,  it  was  said,  among  the  aristocracy.  This  may 
have  been  a  very  narrow  and  ignoble  policy,  but  Mr.  Delane  had 
as  much  right  to  prefer  to  spend  his  evenings  among  dukes  and 
bishops  as  Cobden  had  to  spend  his  among  manufacturers  and 
merchants.  One  thing  he  had  not  a  right  to  do,  and  that  was  to 
fasten  upon  public  men  propositions  which  it  was  his  business  to 
know  that  they  had  never  made. 

That  the  Times  was  wrong  upon  some  of  the  greatest  questions 

^  of  Cobden's  time  is  quite  clear.  How  wrong  it  was  upon  the 
Eussian  War,  the  China  War,  the  American  Civil  War,  everybody 
knows.  But  let  us  be  just.  If  the  Times  w^as  wrong,  so  was  the 
country.  The  newspaper  only  said  what  the  directing  classes  of 
the  country  said.  Cobden's  own  letters  to  his  friends  show  as 
much  as  this.     The  Times  was,  in  fact,  the  natural  exponent  of 

\y'  all  those  old  ideas  of  national  policy  which  Cobden  Ikis  bent  on 
overthrowing.  Just  like  the  Athenian  Sophist,  the  newspaper 
taught  the  conventional  prejudices  of  those  who  paid  for  it.  It 
is  as  if,  says  Socrates  of  the  Sophist  and  his  public,  a  man  had 
observed  the  appetites  of  a  great  and  powerful  beast,  how  to  ap- 
proach it,  why  it  is  furious  or  calm,  what  tones  soothe  and  what 
tones  irritate  it.     Like  the  Sophist,  the   newspaper  reflects  the 

yj  morality,  the  intelligence,  the  tone  of  sentiment,  of  its  public.  If 
the  latter  is  vicious,  so  is  the  former. 

As  it  happened,  a  great  organ  in  the  penny  press  treated  Cob- 
den, as  he  thought,  even  worse  than  if  its  price  had  been  three- 


^T.  59.]       CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  MR.  DELANE.        605 

pence.  The  Daily  Telegra'ph  declined  to  print  Cobden's  letter  to 
Mr.  Delane,  from  a  rather  unctuously  expressed  tenderness  for 
Gobden's  reputation ;  but  though  it  suppressed  his  letter,  it  pub- 
lished some  very  unfriendly  comments  on  it.  Cobden  protested 
against  this  with  much  vivacity.  The  merciful  haze  of  time  has 
effaced  the  interest  of  much  of  his  letter,  but  some  portion  of  it  is 
relevant  to  still  unsettled  questions  in  the  constitution  of  the 
literary  priesthood. 

The  question  concerns  the  Government  on  one  side,  and  the  leading  London 
journal  on  the  other.  Does  not  that  affect  the  public?  Is  the  disposal  of 
Government  patronage  —  the  appointment  to  posts  which  the  public  pay  — 
a  private  or  personal  question  ?  Recollect,  I  repeat,  that  the  entire  contro- 
versy between  us  is,  whether  or  not  the  subject  should  be  shrouded  in 
secrecy.  It  is  not  the  question  of  anonymous  writing  that  is  in  debate.  That 
is  only  the  red  herring  drawn  across  the  true  scent.  We  all  write  anonymously, 
more  or  less.  The  only  objection  is  to  the  masked  literary  assassin.  Nor  is 
it  a  question  whether  writers  for  the  press  have  a  right  to  their  share  of  public 
appointments ;  nobody  denies  it.  I  do  not  even  say  that  the  stream  of  pat- 
ronage ought  not  to  flow  to  the  Times  office  ;  I  only  contend  that  it  should 
not  run  underground. 

Far  from  thinking  that  the  class  of  whom  we  are  speaking  should  be  ex- 
cluded from  the  public  service,  I  form  a  very  high  estimate  of  the  fitness  for 
legislative  and  administrative  function,  of  those  who  write  for  the  political 
instruction  of  the  people.  And  it  is  on  this  account  that,  while  I  deny  to  no 
one  the  right  of  an  honest  incognito,  I  regret  that  the  prevalent,  and  perhaps 
unavoidable  habit  of  anonymous  writing  in  the  metropolis,  should  entomb, 
for  all  practical  political  purposes,  so  much  of  our  best  intellect,  and  rob  so- 
ciety of  the  full  development  of  that  individuality,  which,  more  than  all  be- 
sides, is  essential  to  the  progress  and  elevation  of  our  species.  In  the 
provinces,  the  anonymous  system  has,  practically,  up  to  a  very  recent  period, 
never  been  in  operation  ;  because,  there,  every  man's  occupation  was  more  or 
less  known  to  his  neighbors.  And,  if  space  permitted,  I  could  trace  the 
salutary  effect  of  this  on  the  political  progress  of  the  last  generation  ;  for  it 
would  be  easy  to  adduce  the  names  of  half  a  score  of  men,  the  conductors  of 
journals  in  Leeds,  Edinburgh,  Liverpool,  Manchester,  Norwich,  &c.,  &c.,  to 
whose  able,  honest,  and  energetic  efforts,  as  leaders  of  pul)lic  opinion  in  their 
several  localities,  more  than  probably  any  other  traceable  cause,  the  nation  is 
indebted  for  its  successful  resistance  to  that  reactionary  spirit,  which,  from 
the  end  of  the  last  century,  down  to  1820,  ran  its  course  of  tyrannical  repres- 
sion, and  filled  all  but  the  stoutest  hearts  with  despair.  These  men  have  all 
passed  away,  but  they  should  not  be  forgotten.  And  if,  when  my  friend  Dr. 
Smiles,  himself  a  distinguished  member  of  the  fraternity,  shall  have  com- 
pleted his  biographies  of  our  great  discoverers,  and  improvers  in  physical  sci- 
ence, he  should  give  us  a  volume  of  the  lives  of  those  pioneers  of  political 
progress,  it  will  be  seen  that  their  triumphs  are  traceable  to  somethiupj  more 
than  an  investment  of  capital  in  presses  and  type,  with  an  impersonal  editorial 
staff,  —  that  they  were  in  each  case  due  to  the  open  and  avowed  writing,  and 
the  personal  example  of  the  individual  man,  who  was  living  in  clear  daylight, 
under  the  full  gaze  of  his  neighbors,  whom  he  was  not  only  stimulating,  but 
leading  in  the  path  of  duty,  and  by  whom  he  was  in  turn  cheered  and  sus- 
tained. I  might  also,  if  space  allowed,  refer  to  the  advantages  which  open 
and  avowed  journalism  might  afford  to  the  electoral  body,  in  the  choice  of 
representatives  to  Parliament.  Those  members  of  the  House  of  Commons 
connected  with  the  public  press,  who  have  been  elected  during  my  experience, 


V 


606  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1864. 

and  who,  with  the  exception  of  the  first  named,  were  connected  with  pro\in- 
cial  journals,  —  Messrs.  Miall,  Baines,  Macguire,  Fagan,  Lucas,  and  others, — 
whatever  may  be  the  differences  of  opinion  as  to  their  views,  will  be  acknowl- 
edged by  all  who  have  sat  with  them  as  having  been,  in  every  case,  among 
the  foremost  of  their  party,  for  political  intelligejice  and  honor. 

I  have  said  enough  to  show  that  I  take  a  more  exalted  view  than  most 
men,  of  the  mission  of  those  who  instruct  the  public  through  the  newspaper 
press,  and  that,  while  asserting  their  title  to  the  most  honorable  posts,  I  am 
assailing  only  a  system  by  which  they  are  huddled  clandestinely  into  inferior 
emp-oyments,  as  the  result  of  a  secret  and  illicit  intercourse  with  the  Govern- 
ihent  of  the  day.  And  I  revert  to  the  question  —  has  not  the  country  a  right 
to  be"  informed,  on  my  responsibility,  that  this  illicit  intercourse  has  been 
carried  on  between  the  Times  and  the  Government ;  and  is  the  Daily  Tele- 
graph iustified  in  intercepting  from  the  public,  so  far  as  lies  in  its  power,  all 
knowledge  of  the  fact,  on  the  plea  that  it  is  a  personal  matter  ? 

Here  we  may  leave  the  subject,  merely  remarking  that  to  the 
present  writer  it  seems  that  the  word  "  illicit "  in  the  letter  is  en- 
tirely misplaced  and  unintelligible.  There  was  only  one  way  of 
effectually  checking  the  excessive  authority  of  a  journal  which 
had  abused  it ;  this  was  to  encourage  the  establishment  of  com- 
petitors. Cobden  did  as  much  towards  this  desirable  end  as  any 
one,  by  his  share  in  the  reduction  of  the  paper  duty,  which  was 
what  made  the  cheap  press  possible.  The  multiplication  of  news- 
papers and  periodicals  has  had  the  further  effect  of  clearing  away 
the  old  charlatanry  and  the  mystery  of  authorship  and  editorship. 
The  names  of  all  important  journalists  are  now  coming  to  be  prac- 
tically as  well  known  as  the  names  of  important  Members  of  Par- 
liament, and  this  change  has  naturally  been  followed  by  that  more 
careful  sense  of  responsibility  which  Cobden  was  quite  right  in 
insisting  upon. 


CHAPTEE  XXXVI. 

THE  DANISH  WAR  —  LAST   SPEECHES   IN  PARLIAMENT  — 
CORRESPONDENCE. 

It  was  truly  said  by  a  Member  of  the  House  of  Commons  at  the 
time,  that  if  the  Session  of  1864  were  remembered  at  all  twenty 
years  afterwards,  it  would  only  be  remembered  for  the  answer 
which  it  gave  to  the  question.  Shall  or  shall  not  England  take 
part  in  the  struggle  between  Germany  and  Denmark  ?  This  en- 
titles it  to  a  notable  place  in  any  account  of  Cobden.  The  answer 
that  was  then  given  was  as  remarkable  a  triumph  for  Cobden's 
principles,  as  the  result  of  the  Don  Pacifico  debate  had  been  a 


Mr.eorj  THE  DANISH   WAR.  607 

victory  for  Lord   Palmerston  fourteen   years  before.     The  great 
wave  of  Nationality  which  was  the  moving  force  in  Europe  for  so    ^Z 
many  years  after  the  storm  of  1848,  now  swept  into  Schleswig- 
Holstein,  and  brought  Danes  and  Germans  into  violent  collision. 
We  may  here  content  ourselves  with  Cobden's  own  account  of 
what  he  justly  called  that  most  complicated  of  all  questious.    "  In 
1852,"  he  said,  "  by  the  mischievous  activity  of  our  Foreign  Office, 
seven  diplomatists  were  brought  round  a  green  table  in  London  to 
settle  the  destinies  of  a  million  of  people  in  the  two  provinces  of 
Schleswig  and   Holstein,  without  the  slightest  reference  to  the\X^ 
wants  and  wishes  or  the  tendencies  or  the  interests  of  that  people. 
The  preamble  of  the  treaty  which  was  there  and  then  agreed  to 
stated  that  what  those  seven  diplomatists  were  going  to  do  was 
to  maintain  the  integrity  of  the  Danish  monarchy,  and  to  sustain    '^ 
the  balance  of  power  in  Europe.     Kings,  Emperors,  Princes,  were 
represented  at  that  meeting,  but  the  people  had  not  the  slightest 
voice  or  right  in  the  matter.     They  settled  the  treaty,  the  object 
of  which  was  to  draw  closer  the  bonds  between  those  two  prov-  \y^ 
inces  and  Denmark.     The  tendency  of  the  great  majority  of  the 
people  of  those  provinces  —  about  a  million  of  them  altogether  — 
was  altogether  in  the  direction  of  Germany.     From  that  time  to 
this  year  the  treaty  was  followed  by  constant  agitation  and  dis- 
cord ;  two  wars  have  sprung  out  of  it,  and  it  has  ended  in  the   ^ 
treaty  being  torn  to  pieces  by  two  of  the  Governments  who  were 
prominent  parties  to  the  treaty."  ^ 

The  question  was  whether  England  should  go  to  the  aid  of  the  y 
weak  Power  against  the  two  strong  ones.  Lord  Palmerston  and 
Lord  Russell  were  in  favor  of  vigorous  intervention,  both  before 
the  war  broke  out,  and  after  the  failure  of  the  London  Conference. 
They  undoubtedly  encouraged  Denmark  to  resist.  They  were  held 
back  by  colleagues,  against  whose  timidity  the  two  veterans  bit- 
terly murmured  to  one  another.^  When  the  London  Conference 
broke  up,  there  was  a  universal  apprehension  that  the  active  party 
in  the  Cabinet  would  still  carry  the  day,  and  that  Great  Britain 
would  find  herself  committed  without  an  ally  to  the  terrible  peril 
of  a  war  with  Germany. 

"  At  the  end  of  June,"  as  Cobden  described  it,  "  the  Prime  Min- 
ister announced  that  he  was  going  to  produce  the  protocols,  and  \/ 
to  state  the  decision  of  the  Government  upon  the  question.  He 
gave  a  week's  notice  of  this  intention,  and  then  I  witnessed  what 
has  convinced  me  that  we  liave  achieved  a  revolution  in  our  for- 
eign policy.  The  whippers-in  —  you  know  what  I  mean  —  those 
on  each  side  of  the  House  who  undertake  to  take  stock  of  the 
number  and  the  opinions  of  their   followers  —  the  whippers-in 

1  SpeecTies,  ii,  341.  2  Mr.  Ashley's  Life  of  Lord  PalmersUm^  ii.  437,  438. 


608  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1864. 

during  the  week  were  taking  soundings  of  tHe  inclination  of  Mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Commons.  And  then  came  up  froni  the 
country  such  a  manifestation  of  opinion  against  war,  that  day 
after  day  during  that  eventful  week  Member  after  Member  from 
the  largest  constituencies  went  to  those  who  acted  for  the  Govern- 

l  ment  in  Parliament,  and  told  them  distinctly  that  they  would  not 
allow  war  on  any  such  matters  as  Schleswig  and  Holstein.  Then 
came  surging  up  from  all  the  great  seats  and  centres  of  manufac- 

^.,  turing  and  commercial  activity  one  unanimous  veto  upon  war  for 
this  matter  of  Schleswig  and  Holstein."^  The  result  was  that 
when  Lord  Palmerston  came  down  to  the  House  on  that  mem- 
orable afternoon  of  the  27th  of  June,  it  was  to  make  the  pro- 
foundly satisfactory,  but  profoundly  humiliating  announcement, 
that  there  was  to  be  no  war.  They  had  ascertained,  he  said,  that 
France  declined  to  take  any  active  part  in  support  of  Denmark. 
They  had  ascertained  that  Eussia  would  take  no  part.  The  whole 
brunt  of  the  effort  requisite  for  dislodging  the  German  troops 
would  fall  upon  this  country  alone.  Under  these  circumstances, 
they  had  not  thought  it  consistent  with  their  duty  to  advise  the 
Sovereign  to  undertake  the  task.  Lord  Palmerston  wound  up  his 
statement  by  menaces  of  great  things  to  be  done  by  the  Govern- 
ment if  Prussia  and  Austria  went  a  step  further  in  certain  possi- 
ble directions.  These  curiously  hollow  and  ill-timed  threats  were 
received  with  loud  shouts  of  derision,  and  Mr.  Disraeli  had  the 
whole  House  with  him  when  he  denounced  them  as  spiritless  and 
Senseless.  He  had  the  House  with  him  when  he  went  on  to  say 
that,  judging  from  the  past,  he  would  prefer  that  the  affairs  of  the 
country  should  be  conducted  on  the  principles  of  the  Member  for 
Eochdale  and  the  Member  for  Birmingham.  In  that  case  the 
consequences  might  be  the  same,  but  the  position  of  England 
would  be  more  consistent  and  more  dignified.  At  least  these  two 
gentlemen  would  threaten  nobody ;  at  least  they  would  not  have 
told  Denmark  that  if  she  were  attacked  she  would  not  find  her- 
self alone ;  at  least  they  would  not  have  exasperated  Germany  by 
declaiming  in  the  full  Parliament  of  England  against  the  "  aggra- 
vated outrages  "  of  her  policy ;  at  least  they  would  not  have  lured 
Denmark  on  by  delusive  counsels  and  fallacious  hopes. 

When  in  course  of  time  Mr.  Disraeli  moved  a  vote  of  censure, 
Cobden  did  not  let  the  opportunity  slip.     The  inherent  strength 

^  of  his  position  made  his  speech  even  more  free  than  usual  from 
bitterness  or  personality.  It  was  felt  that  the  humiliating  break- 
down of  the  Foreign  Office,  and  the  meddling  and  impotent 
diplomacy  of  which  Lord  Palmerston  was  now  the  traditional 
representative,  was  a  complete  justification  of  the  great  principles 

1  Speeches,  ii.  344. 


iET.  60.]  THE   DANISH  WAR.  609 

of  non-intervention  as  he  had  preached  them  for  a  whole  genera- 
tion.   For  the  last  time,  as  it  was  destined  to  be,  he  pressed  home 
the  old  arguments  for  taking  all  reasonable  and  possible  precau- 
tions  for  avoiding  Continental  quarrels.     "  Our  country,"  he  sai(},  \ 
"  requires  peace.     Some  people  think  it  is  very  degrading,  very  j 
base,  that  an  Englishman  should  speak  of  his  country  as  requir-  ' 
ing  peace,  and  as  being  entitled  to  enjoy  its  blessings ;  and  if  we 
allude  to  our  enormous  commercial  and  industrial  engagements  as  \ 
a  reason  why  we  should  avoid  these  petty  embroilments,  we  are  I 
told  that  we  are  selfish  and  grovelling  in  our  politics.     But  I  say 
we  were  very  wrong  to  take  such  measures  as  were  calculated  to 
extend  our  commerce,  unless  we  were  prepared  to  use  prudential  ; 
precautions  to  keep  our  varied  manufacturing   and   mercantile  j 
operations  free  from  the  mischiefs  of  unnecessary  war.    You  have  A 
in  this  country  engagements  of  the  most  extensive  and  compli-  1 
cated  kind.     You  have  extended  your  operations  during  the  last  \ 
twenty-five  years  to  such  a  degree,  that  you  are  now  actually  ex- 
porting three  times  as  much  as  you  did  twenty-five  years  ago  — 
that  is,  your  foreign  commerce,  and  the  manufactures  on  which  it 
depends,  have  grown  in  a  quarter  of  a  century  twice  as  much  as 
they  grew  in  a  thousand  years  before."  —  (July  5.) 

Lord  Eobert  Cecil,  wlio  followed  him  in  the  debate,  observed 
caustically  that  though  Cobden  was  about  to  support  the  Govern- 
ment against  the  vote  of  censure,  his  enthusiasm  for  them  was 
not  very  warm.  The  Member  for  Rochdale,  he  said,  was  about  as 
good  a  friend  of  Her  Majesty's  Government,  as  Her  Majesty's 
Government  had  been  of  the  kingdom  of  Denmark ;  there  was, 
however,  the  remarkable  difference  between  the  two  cases,  that 
whereas  the  Government  gave  to  Denmark  abundance  of  good 
words  but  no  material  aid,  the  honorable  Member  was  about  to 
give  the  Government  all  his  material  aid,  while  he  accompanied 
it  with  a  full  dose  of  what  certainly  could  not  be  called  fair  words. 
When  the  division  was  taken,  the  Government  won  by  a  majority 
of  eighteen,  but  Lord  Palmerston  must  have  felt  that  the  policy  / 
of  Free  Trade  had,  among  many  other  changes  which  it  had  ^ 
wrought,  finally  taken  the  supreme  control  of  peace  and  war  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  old  territorial  oligarchy. 

Cobden  made  two  other  elaborate  speeches  in  the  course  of  the  n^ 
session.     One  was  introductory  of  a   series  of  resolutions  on  a       / 
subject  on  which  he  had  long  entertained  strong  views,  the  great 
extension  of  Government  manufacturing  establishments.     In  this, 
as  in  his  views  on  the  greater  subject  of  Free  Trade,  Cobden  was 
able  to  quote  the  illustrious  authority  of  Burke  in  favor  of  the 
principle  which  he  was  now  advocating,  that  the  Government 
should  not  be  allowed  to  manufacture  for  itself  any  article  which  ^' 
could  be  obtained  from  private  producers  in  a  competitive  mar-  ' 

39 


610  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1864. 

ket.^     The  other  important  speech  had  been  made  earlier  in  the 
session,  and  carried  his  views  of  foreign  policy  into  a  field  where 

\y  their  application  was  becoming,  and  has  remained,  more  urgently- 
necessary  than  it  was  even  in  the  sphere  of  Continental  Europe. 
He  moved  a  resolution  to  the  effect  that  the  policy  of  non-inter- 
vention by  force  of  arms  in  the  internal  political  affairs  of  foreign 
y'  countries,  which  we  profess  to  observe  in  Europe  and  America, 
should  also  be  observed  in  our  intercourse  with  the  Empire  of 
China.^  What  gave  special  point  to  the  resolution  was  the  fact 
that  at  this  time  we  wT.re  in  danger  of  repeating  the  same  vio- 
lence and  the  same  impolicy  which  had  worked  such  confusion  in 
China,  in  forcing  intercourse  upon  the  people  of  Japan.  Now,  as 
on  many  occasions  before,  Cobden  showed  his  sense  of  the  danger 
that  the  cry  for  new  markets  might  become  as  mischievous  as 
the  old  cry  for  extended  dominion.  The  enormous  expansion  of 
manufacturing  industry  had  made  some  of  the  commercial  class 
as  ready  to  use  violence  in  opening  fresh  fields  for  the  sake  of 

U  gain,  as  the  aristocracy  had  ever  been  to  use  it  in  satisfying  their 
national  pride  or  military  ambition.  Cobden's  demonstration  of 
the  perils  which  lie  before  us  on  this  side,  and  he  w^as  not  ashamed 
to  consider  moral  as  well  as  material  perils,  still  remains  as  apt 
and  as  timely  as  it  was  in  his  own  day. 

Cobden  wrote  his  longest  letters  at  this  time  to  Mr.  Sumner 
and  M.  Chevalier.  He  protested,  as  we  see,  against  the  early  ten- 
dencies of  his  American  friend,  to  imitate  the  worst  faults  of  the 
worst  kind  of  European  diplomacy ;  and  to  his  Erench  friend  he 
put  a  question  as  to  what  might  happen  in  1870,  which  subse- 
quent events  made  curiously  significant. 

Character  of  President  Lincoln. 

"  Jan.  7.  ( To  Mr.  Sumner)  —  You  will  soon  begin  to  busy 
yourselves  with  the  task  of  President-making.  I  hope  you  will 
re-elect  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  is  rising  in  reputation  in  Europe  apart 
from  the  success  of  the  North.  He  possesses  great  moral  quali- 
ties, which  in  the  long-run  tell  more  on  the  fortunes  of  the  world 
in  these  days  than  mere  intellect.  I  always  thought  his  want  of 
enlarged  experience  was  a  disadvantage  to  him.  But  he  knows 
his  own  countrymen  evidently,  and  that  is  the  main  point.  And 
being  a  stranger  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  he  has  the  less  tempta- 
tion to  embark  in  foreign  controversies  or  quarrels.  Nothing 
shows  his  solid  sense  more  than  the  pertinacity  with  which  he 
avoids  all  outside  complications.     His  truthful  elevation  of  char- 

1  This  excellent  speech,  which  was  Cobden's  last  performance  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  is  to  be  found  in  Hansard,  clxxvi.,  July  22,  1864. 

2  May  31,  1864. 


^T.60.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  611 

acter,  and  his  somewhat  stolid  placidity  of  nature,  put  it  quite  be- 
yond the  power  of  other  governments  to  fasten  a  quarrel  on  him, 
and  inspire  the  fullest  confidence  in  those  who  are  committing 
themselves  to  the  side  of  the  North.  I  say  all  this  on  the  as- 
sumption that  he  has  irrevocably  committed  himself  to  '  abolition ' 
as  the  result  of  the  war.  Any  compromise  on  that  question  would 
cover  your  cause  with  eternal  infamy,  and  render  the  sanguinary 
civil  war  with  which  you  have  desolated  the  North  and  South  a 
useless  butchery." 

The  American  War. 

"  Midhurst,  Aug.  18,  1864.  (  „  ) — I  still  look  forward  with 
unabated  confidence  to  the  triumph  of  the  North.  But  I  begin 
to  speculate  on  the  effect  which  the  failure  of  Grant's  campaign 
may  have  on  your  politics.  Sometimes  I  speculate  on  the  possi- 
bility of  your  imitating  the  course  which  political  parties  often 
follow  here,  and  that  your  Democrats,  who  appear  to  be  for  peace, 
may  come  into  power,  and  carry  out  even  more  successfully  than 
your  party  could  do  the  policy  of  war  and  abolition  of  slavery. 
Like  Peel  in  his  course  on  Free  Trade  and  Catholic  Emancipa- 
tion, they  would  have  the  advantage  of  being  sure  of  the  support 
of  the  honest  advocates  of  the  policy  they  adopted,  even  although 
they  were  nominally  in  the  ranks  of  their  political  opponents. 
What  I  most  dread  is  your  falling  into  political  confusion  in  the 
North !  That  would  be  a  severe  blow  to  the  principle  of  self- 
government  everywhere." 

Garibaldi's  Visit  to  London. 

"May  3,  1864.  {To  M.  Chevalier)  —  I  thought  you  were  now 
sufficiently  acquainted  with  England  not  to  attach  undue  impor- 
tance to  the  Garibaldi  affair,  in  so  far  as  our  ministers  are  con- 
cerned.i  They  of  course  were  only  acting  a  political  part  in 
order  to  catch  a  little  of  the  popularity  which  for  the  moment 
surrounded  the  Italian  hero.  You  do  not  of  course  suppose  that 
Palmerston  entertains  any  views  in  common  with  Garibaldi.  It 
would  be  difficult  indeed  to  show  that  he  has  any  views  at  all  be- 
yond the  wish  to  hold  office  by  flattering  the  popular  passions  of 
the  hour.  The  people  were  quite  sincere  in  the  homage  they 
offered  to  the  Italian.^     They  believed  in  his  honesty  and  disin- 

1  Garibaldi  arrived  in  England  on  April  3.  The  wild  enthusiasm  with  which 
he  was  received  by  the  densest  masses  that  ever  attended  a  procession  in  London, 
made  the  Government  uncomfortable.  By  some  intrigue,  the  great  hero  of  the 
European  Revolution  was  hurried  out  of  the  country  in  the  Duke  of  Sutherland's 
yacht. 

'•*  "London^  May  10.     {To Mr.  T.  B.  Potter.) —  ....  The  working  people  in 


612  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1864. 

terestedness,  and  they  know  him  to  be  a  good  fighter  !  There  is 
a  certain  antique  picturesqueness  about  tlie  man  too  which 
attracts  the  sight-loving  multitude.  But  there  are  perhaps  other 
reasons  why  the  middle  classes  share  the  enthusiasm  of  the  pop- 
ulace. They  believe  him  to  be  an  enemy  of  the  Pope,  and  you 
know  what  ardent  Protestants  we  are !  The  Dukes  and  Duch- 
esses took  possession  of  Garibaldi  to  keep  him  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  democrats,  and  when  they  had  finished  feting  him,  they 
sent  him  straight  home  to  Caprera  in  a  Duke's  yacht.  It  was 
expected  that  he  would  make  a  tour  in  the  north  of  England,  and 
all  arrangements  had  been  made  to  receive  him  in  Manchester, 
Newcastle,  and  other  places.  But  it  was  feared  by  his  aristo- 
cratic acquaintances  in  London  that  if  he  went  to  the  provinces 
he  might  be  talking  too  revolutionarily,  and  so  he  was  persuaded 
to  go  away  home,  greatly  to  the  disgust  of  the  country  democrats, 
who  consider  themselves  '  done.'  All  this  is  merely  the  play  of 
our  political  game,  in  which  the  so-called  statesmen  and  minis- 
ters of  the  Crown  do  not  act  a  very  dignified  part.  The  affairs  of 
the  Conference  are  not  very  promising.  It  seems  that  we  are  to 
be  thankful  that  France  and  England  are  not  on  better  terms. 
Last  autumn  France  was  apparently  willing  to  go  to  war  with 
Eussia  for  Poland,  and  EnHand  declined.  Now  Endand  seems 
to  be  desirous  of  going  to  war  with  Germany  for  Denmark,  and 
France  declines !  So  we  have  preserved  peace  in  consequence  of 
the  suspension  of  the  entente  cordiaUy 


Free  Trade  in  France. 

"27  Victoria  Street,  Westminster,  June  27.  (  „  )  —  I  ought 
to  have  written  to  you  more  promptly,  to  thank  you  for  the  very 
kind  invitation  conveyed  in  your  last  letter.  Be  assured  that  it 
would  give  my  wife  and  me  very  great  pleasure  to  come  and  pay 
Madame  Chevalier  and  you  a  long  family  visit  in  the  Herault.  I 
am,  however,  afraid  it  will  not  be  in  my  power  to  avail  myself  of 
your  friendly  offer  of  hospitality.  In  the  present  state  of  my 
health  I  am  obliged  to  look  forward  to  the  possibility  of  being 
compelled  to  go  abroad  in  the  winter.  You  know  that  the  cli- 
mate of  England  from  May  to  October  is  the  finest  in  the  world, 
and  gives  no  excuse  for  the  invalid  to  leave  home.     I  must  there- 

the  metropolis  are  very  proud  of  their  reception  of  Garibaldi,  and  those  of  the 
provinces  are  hoping  for  another  opportunity  of  feting  him. 

"When  will  the  masses  of  this  country  begin  to  think  of  home  politics  ?  Our 
friend  Bright  observed,  as  he  gazed  from  a  window  in  Parliament  Street  on  the  tens 
of  thousands  that  cheered  the  Italian,  '  If  the  people  would  only  make  a  few  such 
demonstrations  for  themselves,  M'e  could  do  something  for  them.'  But  nothing 
except  foreign  politics  seems  to  occupy  the  attention  of  the  people,  press,  or  Par- 
liament." 


^T.  60.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  613 

fore  remain  with  my  family  in  the  summer,  in  the  fear  that  my 
health  may  compel  me  to  go  to  the  south  in  the  winter.  I  should 
be  delighted  to  have  the  opportunity  of  passing  a  few  weeks  with 
you.  Among  other  matters  we  could  talk  over  the  progress  of 
Free  Trade  in  France.  I  confess  I  am  not  satisfied  that  you  do 
not  continue  to  make  further  reforms,  if  only  to  guard  against 
reaction  in  those  already  made.  Time  is  passing.  It  is  now  four 
years  since  we  arranged  your  tariff.  Are  you  sure  that  in  1870 
you  will  be  so  completely  under  the  Free  Trade  regime  as  to  pre- 
vent the  government  of  that  day  (God  knows  what  it  may  be) 
from  going  back  to  protection  after  the  Anglo-French  Treaty  ex- 
pires. 

"  We  are  in  a  critical  political  situation  here.  It  is  not  easy  to 
say  what  will  happen  in  a  week  or  two  in  the  House.  The  Whigs 
are  in  a  very  sorry  plight.  But  the  Tories  are  so  stupid  that 
they  seem  hardly  capable  of  profiting  by  the  blunders  of  their 
opponents.  The  Opposition  is  to  meet  to-morrow  at  Lord  Derby's, 
to  consider  the  next  step.  If  they  move  a  resolution  implying 
censure  on  the  Government  for  not  having  gone  to  war,  they  will 
not  be  supported  by  a  majority  of  the  House,  for  both  sides  are 
very  much  opposed  to  war  in  behalf  of  the  Danes.  I  have  been 
much  struck  with  this  pacific  sentiment  in  both  parties.  It  is 
quite  different  from  what  it  was  previous  to  the  Crimean  War." 

Tone  of  English  Politics. 

"  Midhurst,  Nov.  5.  (  „  )  —  I  am  glad  to  hear  that  you  and 
Madame  Chevalier  are  returning  in  good  health  to  Paris.  It  is  a 
long  time  since  we  exchanged  letters.  But  I  have  been  vegetat- 
ing here  ever  since  the  close  of  the  Session  of  Parliament,  and 
have  had  no  news  to  communicate  to  distant  friends.  I  have  not 
yet  made  up  my  mind  whether  I  shall  leave  home  for  a  more 
sunny  region  this  winter.  It  will  depend  on  my  health  and  the 
temperature  of  our  English  winter,  I  do  not  contemplate  in  any 
case  going  to  Africa.  It  may  be  necessary  for  me  to  go  to  South- 
ern Europe.  But  I  confess  I  have  a  great  repugnance  to  making 
a  journey  of  a  thousand  miles  merely  on  an  errand  of  health. 

"  I  have  received  the  Dehats  with  its  article  on  the  Metric  Sys- 
tem. We  have  made  a  first  step ;  but  when  I  think  with  what 
Chinese  slowness  we  march  in  the  path  of  reform,  it  makes  me 
despair  of  living  to  see  this  useful  change  carried  into  effect. 

"Our  politics  are  very  stagnant.  How  could  they  be  other- 
wise ?  .  .  .  ,  But  there  is  one  ^eat  chanoje  amountinsj  to  a  revo- 
lution  which  has  been  accomplished  in  our  foreign  policy.  After 
the  fiasco  of  last  Session  on  the  Danish  question,  our  Foreign 
Office  will  never  again  attempt  to  involve  us  in  any  European 


y 


614  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1864. 

entanglements  for  the  Balance  of  Power,  or  for  any  dynastic  pur- 
pose. Henceforth  we  shall  observe  an  absolute  abstention  from 
Continental  politics.  Non-intervention  is  the  policy  of  all  future 
governments  in  this  country.  So  let  the  Grand  Turk  take  care 
of  himself,  for  we  shall  never  fight  his  battle  again.  Until  the 
American  war  is  at  an  end  we  shall  not  recover  our  natural  tone 
of  politics  in  this  country.  I  am  still  convinced  the  South  will 
have  to  succumb.  The  geographical  difficulties  of  separation 
have  always  appeared  to  me  to  be  insurmountable.  The  mouth 
of  the  Mississippi  alone  is  enough  to  prevent  Jeff  Davis  from 
establishing  his  slave  empire.  It  would  be  easier  to  establish  an 
'  East  Anglia  '  by  the  secession  of  Kent  and  Essex  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Thames,  than  to  set  up  an  independent  State  in  Louisiana. 
It  is  not  a  question  ever  to  be  discussed.  It  is  an  impossibihty. 
Have  you  not  like  myself  been  astonished  at  tlie  financial  resour- 
ces of  the  North?  I  have  just  seen  a  pamphlet  recently  published 
in  Washington  by  Mr.  Blodget  on  the  financial  and  industrial  re- 
sources of  the  Union.  I  have  been  astounded  by  tlie  facts  and 
figures  it  gives  from  Government  returns,  railway  traffics,  &c., 
showing  the  almost  incredible  and  fabulous  increase  of  every  kind 
of  production  in  the  Northern  States  during  the  last  three  years 
of  war.  It  is  quite  clear  that  America  stands  on  a  different  foot- 
ing from  the  old  world,  and  that  its  powers,  whether  in  peace  or 
war,  are  to  be  measured  by  a  different  standard.  In  comparing 
their  powers  of  endurance  or  recovery,  we  must  consider  the  one 
to  be  a  man  of  twenty-five  and  the  other  of  sixty " 

International  Law. 

"  Sept.  3.  {To  Henry  Ashworth,  Esq)  —  The  great  fallacy  that 
runs  through  Eoundell  Palmer's  arguments  is  in  the  assumption 
that  '  International  Law '  is  a  fixed  and  immutable  code  lil^e  the 
Ten  Commandments,  and  that  it  would  be  wrong  in  us  now  to  set 
up  any  new  precedents  or  innovations.  Now  the  whole  of  what 
is  called  International  Maritime  Law  is  mere  precedents,  generally 
emanating  from  our  own  Courts,  and  then  adopted  by  the  Ameri- 
cans in  tiynes  and  circumstances  quite  different  from  the  present. 

"  We  agreed  to  a  fundamental  change  in  the  bases  of  the  Mari- 
time Code  at  the  Congress  of  Paris  after  the  Crimean  War  in 
1856,  and  the  great  error  has  been  that  we  did  not  seize  the 
opportunity  of  the  American  war  to  still  further  relax  the  old 
system  in  the  interests'  of  non-combatants  at  sea.  Instead  of 
which  Roundell  Palmer,  who  is  a  lawyer  and  not  a  statesman,  has 
been  put  forward  as  the  exponent  of  British  policy,  and  he  has 
laid  down  principles  which  will  tell  fearfully  against  us  at  a 
future  time The  declaration  of  Paris  in  1856  against  priva- 


iET.  60.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  615 

teering  becomes  a  mere  pretentious  hoax,  when  we  see  that  ships 
such  as  the  *  Georgia '  and  '  Tallahassee '  are  recognized  as  ships  of 
war,  merely  because  they  carry  a  bit  of  paper  called  a  *  Conmiis- 
sion'  instead  of  one  called  a  'Letter  of  Marque.'  It  is  most 
important  that  you  should  disabuse  our  ship-owners  from  their 
delusion  that  this  declaration  against  privateering  will  be  of  any 
benefit  to  them  after  such  precedents  as  we  are  now  establishing 
in  the  event  of  our  being  at  war." 

The  Law  of  Blockade. 

"  Sept.  9.  (  „  )  —  The  Blockade  Laws  are  about  as  rascally 
an  invention  as  the  old  Corn  Laws.  Suppose  Tom  Sayers  lived 
in  a  street,  and  on  the  opposite  side  lived  a  shopkeeper  with  whom 
he  has  been  in  the  habit  of  dealing.  Tom  quarrels  with  his  shop- 
keeper and  forthwith  sends  him  a  challenge  to  fight,  which  is 
accepted.  Tom,  being  a  powerful  man,  sends  word  to  each  and 
every  householder  in  the  street  that  he  is  going  to  fight  the  shop- 
keeper, and  that  until  he  has  finished  fighting  no  person  in  the 
street  must  have  any  dealings  with  the  shopkeeper.  '  We  have 
nothing  to  do  with  your  quarrel,'  say  the  inhabitants,  '  and  you 
have  no  right  to  stop  our  dealings  with  the  shopkeeper.' 

"The  argument  is  just  as  good  on  a  large  scale  as  on  a  small 
one  —  for  fifty  millions  as  for  one  person.  The  various  govern- 
ments of  England  have  been  the  chief  and  almost  only  supporters 
of  the  blockade  laws,  and  no  nation  on  earth  will  be  so  much 
injured  by  them,  not  to  say  a  word  of  their  injustice.  The  sooner 
the  blockade  laws  follow  the  Corn  and  Navigation  laws  the  better 
it  will  be  for  all  nations,  and  for  England  in  particular." 

The  Danish  War. 

"Juhj  1.  {To  Mr.  Ashworth.)—  ....  The  House  of  Com 
mons  is  remarkably  pacific.  I  have  been  much  struck  with  the 
all  but  universal  feeling  among  members  on  both  sides  against 
going  to  war  on  this  Danish  question.  I  really  don't  believe  there 
are  fifty  men  in  the  House,  who,  if  their  votes  were  to  decide  the 
question,  would  vote  for  war.  It  is  the  more  remarkable,  inas- 
much as  the  press  had  been  very  warlike,  and  full  of  threats  and 
braggadocio.  There  was  a  section  of  the  Cabinet  quite  ready  to 
do  auTjthing  for  popularity.  But  the  whipper-in  carried  such  a 
report  of  the  tone  of  the  House,  as  to  decide  the  Government  to 
do  nothing. 

"I  attribute  this  remarkable  change  in  the  temper  of  the  House 
since  the  Crimean  war  to  the  enormous  amount  of  material  inter- 
ests at  stake. 


616  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1864. 

"We  are  exporting  now  at  the  rate  of  160,000,000/.  a  year, 
threefold  our  trade  twenty  years  ago.  This  must  have  given  an 
immense  force  to  the  Conservative  peace  principles  of  the  country. 
The  House  of  Commons  represents  the  wealth  of  the  country 
though  not  its  numbers,  and  I  have  no  doubt  the  members  hear 
from  all  the  great  seats  of  our  commercial  ship-owning  and  manu- 
facturing industries  that  the  busy  prosperous  people  there  wish  to 
be  at  peace.  This  is  one  of  the  effects  which  we  advocates  of 
Free  Trade  always  predicted  and  desired  as  the  consequence  of 
extended  commercial  operations.  But  the  manner  in  which  the 
principle  is  now  operating  is  most  remarkable " 

"  July  26.  (  „  )  —  ....  I  am  glad  you  liked  my  last 
speeches.  One  has  more  and  more  the  painful  impression  that  it 
is  after  all  mere  barren  talk.  I  do  not  see  how  any  material  im- 
provement in  public  affairs  is  possible,  so  long  as  this  old  man  at 
the  head  can  contrive  to  use  all  parties  for  his  own  ends.  With 
Gladstone  and  Gibson  for  his  colleagues,  and  with  a  tacit  conni- 
vance from  a  section  of  the  Tories,  there  can  be  no  honesty  in  our 
party  life  and  little  chance  for  ridding  ourselves  of  the  incubus, 
excepting  with  the  aid  of  Time,  which  I  suppose  will  enforce  a 
superannuation  upon  the  old  gentleman  some  day. 

"  It  would  have  given  me  very  great  enjoyment  to  have  visited 
you  at  your  Highland  box,  but  I  go  quietly  among  my  children 
at  Dunford  during  the  fine  weather,  for  I  always  feel  under  the 
liability  of  being  induced  to  leave  home  for  a  southern  clime  in 
the  winter.  During  the  Session  I  see  little  of  my  young  people, 
and  I  really  think  it  is  as  healthful  as  it  is  pleasant  to  relax  after 
the  turmoil  of  the  House  and  the  clubs  among  the  minds  of 
children.  I  remember  hearing  Wakley  say  in  the  House,  when 
O'Connell  first  showed  symptoms  of  giving  way,  that  if  he  would 
withdraw  from  politics  and  live  with  his  grandchildren,  he  might 
last  for  ten  years.     But  he  died  in  a  twelvemonth." 


CHAPTER   XXXVIIL 

SPEECH  AT  ROCHDALE  —  THE  LAND  QUESTION  —  CORRESPONDENCE 
—  LAST  DAYS  AND  DEATH. 

In  November  Cobden  went  down  to  Eochdale  to  make  his  annual 

speech  to  his  constituents.    He  was  not  in  very  good  spirits  when 

^      he  started,  and  the  exertion  of  travelling  and  of  speaking  to  an 

enormous  audience  lowered  his  powers  still  further.     It  was  the 


yET.60.]  THE   LAND   QUESTION.  617 

largest  meeting  on  one  floor  that  he  had  ever  attended.  The 
speech  itself  is  one  of  his  longest.^  Mr.  Bright,  who  was  absent 
at  Leamington,  said  that,  when  he  read  it,  he  marvelled  how  Cob- 
den  could  have  made  such  a  speecli  when  times  were  so  dull.. 
Besides  being  one  of  his  longest,  it  is  perhaps  the  one  that  gives  ^ y 
the  best  idea  of  his  manner,  and  opens  the  easiest  view  to  his  the-  v^ 
ory  of  the  foreign  policy  which  is  proper  for  Great  Britain  in  her 
existing  circumstances.  We  see  in  it  to  perfection  what  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli commended  in  him,  that  careful  art  of  avoiding  to  drive  his 
arguments  to  an  extremity,  which  was  one  of  the  secrets  of  his 
singular  persuasiveness. 

It  was  in  this  speech  that  he  made  the  memorable  declaration      / 
on  the  Land  Question.    We  have  already  seen  (above,  p.  601)  what  ^ 
he  said  the  year  before  in  the  same  place :  that  the  English  peas- 
antry had  no  parallel  on  the  face  of  the  earth ;  that  there  is  no  ^ 
other  country  in  the  world  where  the  peasantry  is  entirely  di- 
vorced from  the  land.^     He  now  said :  — "  If  I  were  iive-and- 
twenty  or  thirty,  instead  of  being  unhappily  twice  that  number 
of  years,  I  would  take  Adam  Smith  in  hand  —  I  would  not  go 
beyond  him,  I  would  have  no  politics  in  it  —  I  would  take  Adam      y 
Smith  in  hand,  and  I  would  have  a  League  for  free  trade  in  land   ^ 
just  as  we  had  a  League  for  free  trade  in  corn.    You  will  find  just 
the  same  authority  in  Adam  Smith  for  one  as  for  the  other ;  and 
if  it  were  taken  up,  as  it  must  be  taken  up  to  succeed,  not  as  a 
political,  revolutionary,  Eadical,  Chartist  notion,  but  taken  up  on 
politico-economical  grounds;  the  agitation  would  be  certain  to  suc- 
ceed." 3     What  it  was  that  he  precisely  meant  by  free  trade  in 
land  he  did  not  more  particularly  specify.    His  reference  to  Adam 
Smith  is  enough  to  show  that  he  contemplated  the  abolition  of    i/ 
entails  and  other  artificial  means  of  tying  land  up  in  long  settle- 
ments ;  and,  like  all  men  of  sense,  he  constantly  advocated  im-   ^ 
proved  facilities  in  the  machinery  of  transfer.    How  much  further 
he  was  prepared  to  go,  we  cannot  tell ;  but  there  is  no  evidence 
that,  in   England  and   Scotland,  he  was  inclined  to   favor   the  / 
French  system  of  compulsory  partition,  and  there   is  abundant 
evidence  that  he  was  not  likely  to  sympathize  with  any  of  the 
vague  projects  for  what  their  authors  call  the  nationalization  of 
the  land.   .  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  probable  that  he  would  have 
been  friendly  to  the  legislative  recognition,  not  only  in  Ireland' 
but  in  Great  Britain,  of  the  principle  of  Tenant  Eight.    In  one  of 
the  most  effective  of  his  speeches  in  the  time  of  the  Corn  Law, 
which  lias  been  already  referred  to  (see  above,  pp.  214,  215),  he 
insisted  upon  security  of  tenure  as  the  first  condition  of  prosper-    / 
ity  alike  to  landlord,  tenant,  and  laborer.     This  security  he  ex- 

1  Speeches,  ii.  339.     November  23,  1864.  2  Speeches,  ii.  116. 

8  Speeches,  ii.  367.     See  Wealth  of  Nations,  Book  iii.  chap.  ii. 


\y 


618  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1865.' 

pected  to  find  in  leases,  that  should  contain  none  of  those  restrict- 
ive covenants  which  now  so  constantly  hamper  the  tenant  in  the 
manner  of  applying  his  capital  and  carrying  on  his  business. 
Perhaps  he  might  have  been  persuaded  that  leases  themselves  are 
found  by  the  people  concerned  to  be  a  practical  impediment  to  the 
free  movement  of  capital;  and  in  this  way  might  have  come 
round  to  such  a  form  of  legislative  Tenant  Eight  as  would  give 
the  security  of  a  lease  without  involving  an  inconveniently  long 
duration.  However  this  may  be,  we  have  as  a  matter  of  fact  no 
complete  scheme  of  Cobden's  views  on  the  English  Land  Ques- 
tion.i  His  solution  of  the  question  of  the  same  name  in  Ireland, 
we  have  already  seen  (above,  pp.  329,  330,  344,  375).  He  would 
"give  Ireland  to  the  Irish." 

Although  the  few  sentences  which  concerned  a  Land  League  did 
most  to  startle  attention  at  the  moment,  Cobden's  last  speech 
dealt  much  more  fully  w^ith  other  topics,  and  covered  a  very  wide 
space  of  political  ground.  The  exhaustion  after  such  an  eflbrt 
was  severe.  "  I  should  have  been  well  enough,"  Cobden  told  Mr. 
Paulton,  "  if  I  could  have  gone  to  bed  for  four  and  twenty  hours 
after  the  speech.  But  the  next  day  Mr.  Kemp  had  a  reception  of 
two  hundred  of  the  leading  Liberals,  and  I  spent  the  wdiole  even- 
ing in  shaking  hands  and  incessant  talking  to  relays  of  friends." 
The  journey  home  made  things  worse.  He  was  afraid  to  rest  in 
\/  London,  lest  he  should  find  himself  compelled  by  illness  to  remain 
there.  On  the  whole,  when  he  reached  home,  he  considered  that 
he  had  escaped  tolerably  well,  but  he  made  up  his  mind  that  he 
must  never  attend  another  public  meeting  in  the  winter  season. 
As  it  was,  he  found  that  he  had  suffered  more  harm  than  he  sup- 
posed. Two  months  after  his  return  he  gave  the  following  ac- 
count of  himself  to  Mr.  Paulton  :  — 

''Jan.  25.  —  I  have  never  before  had  such  a  shake.  I  came 
back  from  my  imprudent  trip  to  the  North  out  of  order  from  top 
to  toe.  Besides  my  old  foe  (which  the  Doctor  here  calls  '  nervous 
asthma'),  from  which  my  breathing  Avas  so  obstructed  that  I 
could  hardly  move  a  limb,  I  had  an  attack  of  bronchitis,  which 
threatened  to  extend  to  my  lungs,  and  my  stomach  was  much  dis- 
ordered with  feverish  symptoms.  Our  little  apothecary  was  very 
assiduous,  and  I  am  much  better.  The  asthma  has  entirely  dis- 
appeared, and  I  can  walk  upstairs  Avithout  any  of  the  old  symp- 
toms. But  I  am  thinner,  and  without  air  or  exercise  how  can 
any  one  be  w^ell  ?     I  have  not  been  out  of  doors  since  I  returned 

^  Mr.  Thorold  Rogers,  who  had  many  conversations  with  him  on  the  subject, 
says  that  by  free  trade  in  land  Cobden  meant  "the  extension  of  the  principle  of 
free  exchange  in  all  its  fulness  to  landed  estates,  and  the  removal  of  all  restrictions 
on  its  transfer,  either  voluntarily,  should  the  owner  desire  to  sell  it,  or  involunta- 
rily if  the  owner  becomes  embarrassed."  —  Cobden  and  Modem  Political  Opinion^ 
chap.  iii.  p.  89. 


^T.  60.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  619 

home.  This  cold  weather  keeps  up  the  old  irritation  in  my  throat, 
and  I  am  not  free  from  cough.  In  fact  what  I  want  is  a  fortnight 
of  July  sunshine.  This  has  heen  the  most  disagreeable  winter  I 
have  ever  known  here.  Generally  we  get  sunshine  in  the  middle 
of  the  day,  if  even  for  only  two  or  three  hours.  This  year,  although 
the  average  temperature  has  not  been  lower  than  usual,  there  have 
been  great  fluctuations,  with  much  moisture  and  cloudiness.  At 
present  the  ground  is  covered  with  snow  of  unusual  depth. 

"  I  am  deeply  obliged  to  you  and  Mrs.  Paulton  for  your  kind 
invitation.  At  present  I  cannot  entertain  the  idea  of  going  to 
town.  I  should  not  be  able  to  attend  the  House,  and  in  anything 
like  my  present  state  of  health,  home  is  the  only  proper  place  for 
me.  Besides  there  never  was  a  time  when  so  little  motive  existed 
to  lead  a  man  to  run  risks  of  life  and  health  in  the  fulfilment  of 
his  public  duties The  talk  in  official  circles  is  that  the  elec- 
tion is  to  take  place  in  June.  That  is  the  season  of  the  year  which 
will  suit  me  best.  But  really  what  right  has  anybody  to  pretend 
to  take  the  burden  of  affairs  of  state  on  his  shoulders,  when  he 
has  arrived  at  an  age  when  he  can  hardly  bear  the  weight  of  his 
own  infirmities  ?  I  ought  to  give  up  public  life.  So  nauseous  is 
the  present  state  of  parliamentary  parties,  that  if  I  knew  the  gen- 
eral election  would  give  the  old  Premier  a  renewed  rule,  I  should 
secretly  pray  that  Mr.  Brett  ^  would  relieve  me  from  the  task  of 
being  a  further  witness,  if  not  accomplice,  to  the  imposture  ! " 

His  time  was  filled  by  vigilant  observation  of  affairs,  and  by 
his  unfailing  practice  of  correspondence.  The  struggle  in  America 
occupied  his  thoughts  incessantly,  partly  because  he  was  looking 
to  the  questions  that  would  remain  for  adjustment  after  the  war 
had  come  to  an  end.  One  of  his  last  letters  to  Mr.  Sumner 
touched  on  this  point :  — 

''Jan,  11,  1865.  —  I  agree  with  a  remark  in  the  concluding 
passage  of  your  last  letter,  that  you  are  fighting  the  battle  of 
liberalism  in  Europe  as  well  as  the  battle  of  freedom  in  America. 
It  is  only  necessary  to  observe  who  are  your  friends  and  who 
your  opponents  in  the  Old  World,  to  be  satisfied  that  great  princi- 
ples are  at  stake  in  your  terrible  conflict.  But  it  is  not  by  victo- 
ries in  the  field  alone  that  you  will  help  the  cause  of  the  masses 
in  Europe.  End  when  it  may,  the  civil  war  will,  in  the  eyes  of 
mankind,  have  conferred  quite  as  much  'glory,'  so  far  as  mere 
fighting  goes,  on  the  South  as  on  the  North.  It  is  in  your  supe- 
riority in  other  things  that  you  can  alone  by  your  example  elevate 
the  Old  World.  I  confess  I  am  very  jealous  of  your  taking  a 
course  which  seems  to  hold  up  our  old  doings  as  an  excuse  for 
your  present  short-comings.      Hence  I  was  sorry  to  see  your 

1  The  present  Lord  Justice  Brett.  He  was  now  before  the  constituency  of  Roch- 
dale as  the  Conservative  candidate. 


620  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1865. 

republication  of  the  old  indictment  against  us  in  your  very  able 
and  learned  pamphlet.  My  answer  is,  that  your  only  title  to 
existence  as  a  Eepublic  is  that  you  are  supposed  to  be  superior 
to  what  we  were  sixty  years  ago.  Had  you  returned  the  '  Florida ' 
to  Bahia  without  a  moment's  delay,  cashiered  the  captain  of  the 
*  Wachusett/  and  offered  to  pay  for  the  support  of  the  survivors 
who  were  dependent  on  those  who  were  killed  or  drowned  in  that 
wicked  outrage,  your  friends  would  have  felt  some  inches  taller 
here.  That  would  have  been  the  true  answer  to  the  taunts  of 
our  Tory  press,  and  not  the  disinterment  of  the  misdeeds  of  our 
Tory  Government  to  show  that  they  did  something  almost  as 
bad  as  the  Federal  commander. 

"  I  was  much  pleased  with  your  speech  on  the  Canadian  diffi- 
culty in  the  South,  when  you  spoke  of  avoiding  all  quarrels  with 
other  countries,  and  devoting  yourself  to  the  one  sole  object  of 
putting  down  the  rebellion.  I  am  not  blind  to  the  fact  that  very 
grave  questions  will  stand  over  for  adjustment  between  your 
country  and  ours.  Some  of  them,  such  as  the  injury  done  to 
your  whole  shipping  interest  by  the  losses  and  destruction  of  a 
port,  can  hardly  be  settled  by  governments.  They  will,  I  fear, 
invite  future  retaliations  on  our  shipping  by  citizens  of  your  coun- 
try, if  we  should  ever  go  to  war.  But  all  these  questions  must  be 
postponed  till  your  war  is  ended,  and  then  probably  the  whole 
world  may  be  ready  for  a  thorough  revolution  in  international 
maritime  law.     It  will  be  for  you  to  show  the  way." 

The  topic  of  national  expenditure  kept  its  place  in  his  mind, 
and  the  plans  for  the  defence  of  Canada  stirred  his  liveliest  dis- 
gust. He  expressed  his  views  in  two  elaborate  letters  to  Mr. 
Gladstone,  with  a  sort  of  forlorn  hope  that  they  might  through 
him  obtain  a  hearing  in  the  Cabinet.  Excepting  Mr.  Gladstone 
himself,  however,  and  Mr.  Gibson,  there  was  nobody  in  the  Cabinet 
who  felt  the  least  inclination  to  listen.  Even  Mr.  Gladstone 
thought  that  his  correspondent  did  less  than  justice  to  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  more  than  justice  to  the  Canadians.  Mr.  Bright, 
meanwhile,  was  working  for  their  views  in  a  different  direction, 
insisting  on  the  proposition  for  which  he  had  been  fighting  ever 
since  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Law,  that  nothing  good  could  be  done 
until  the  representation  was  improved.  He  began  the  new  year 
with  a  powerful  speech  at  Birmingham,  to  Cobden's  great  satis- 
faction :  — 

"Jan.  16.  {To  Mr.  Bright)  — I  see  your  meeting  at  Birming- 
ham is  fixed.  You  will,  I  suppose,  have  something  to  say  about 
Reform.  What  is  wanted  is  to  slay  and  bury  those  delusive 
projects  which  have  of  late  owed  their  existence  to  men  who  wish 
to  mystify  the  simple  question  of  principle,  and  lead  the  public 
astray  after  crotchety  details  of  their  own.     Of  these  Lord  Grey 


Mt.  60.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  621 

and  Buxton  are  the  most  notable.  But  I  suppose  you  are  aware 
that  Stuart  Mill  has  indorsed  Hare's  incomprehensible  scheme. 
It  is  a  pity  that  Mill,  who  on  the  whole  is  so  admirable  in  his 
sympathies  and  tendencies,  should  give  his  sanction  to  these 
novelties.  (I  got  a  letter  the  other  day  from  an  old  Leaguer  in 
Australia,  saying  that  the  Protectionists  there  are  quoting  Mill  to 
justify  a  young  community  in  resorting  for  a  time  to  Protection.) 
It  has  always  appeared  to  me  that  the  best  way  to  meet  the 
wishes  of  those  who  honestly  fear  that  particular  classes  or  bodies 
of  the  community  may  be  unrepresented,  is  to  make  the  electoral 
districts  as  diversified  as  possible.  With  this  view  I  would  allow 
eacli  constituency  to  return  one  representative.  Thus,  for  in- 
stance, if  Birmingham  had  six  members,  they  should  be  elected 
by  six  wards.  This  would  give  every  section  of  the  community 
the  opportunity  of  suiting  itself  The  idea  of  giving  representa- 
tion to  minorities  is  an  absurdity.  It  strikes  at  the  very  founda- 
tions of  representative  government  by  majorities.  It  ignores  the 
fact  that  o'pinion  is  always  represented  by  minorities  as  well  as 
majorities,  or  why  should  there  be  party  divisions  at  all  ?  ^ 

"  Has  it  ever  occurred  to  you  to  ascertain  what  was  the  old 
borough  franchise  ?  In  Forster's  '  Life  of  Eliot,'  giving  a  very 
detailed  account  of  the  parliamentary  and  constitutional  struggle 
between  the  House  of  Commons  and  Charles  I.,  at  the  period 
antecedent  to  the  revolutionary  conflict,  there  are  constant  notices 
of  trials  before  Parliamentary  Committees  to  decide  the  question 
whether  the  right  of  voting  belonged  to  the  '  commonalty  in 
general,'  or  to  privileged  corporations  or  classes.  The  decisions 
seem  to  have  been  almost  always  in  favor  of  the  '  commonalty  in 
general.'  By  this  phrase  I  suppose  was  meant  all  householders 
at  least.     I  dare  say  the  polling-papers  are  preserved  of  the  old 

1  The  last  letter  that  Cobden  wrote  was  on  this  subject.  It  was  addressed  a 
week  before  his  death  (March  22,  1365)  to  Mr.  T.  B.  Potter,  who  had  sent  him 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Mill :  —  '*  Everything  from  him  is  entitled  to  respectful  considera- 
tion. But  I  confess,  after  the  best  attention  to  the  proposed  representation  of 
minorities  which  I  can  give  it,  I  am  so  stupid  as  to  fail  to  see  its  merits.  He  speaks 
of  50,000  electors  having  to  elect  five  members,  and  that  30,000  may  elect  them  all, 
and  to  obviate  this  he  would  give  the  20,000  minority  two  votes.  But  I  would 
give  only  one  vote  to  each  elector,  and  one  representative  to  each  constituency. 
Instead  of  the  50,000  returning  five  in  a  lump,  J  would  have  five  constituencies  of 
10,000,  each  returning  one  member.  Thus,  if  the  metropolis,  for  examj^le,  were 
entitled,  with  a  fair  distribution  of  electoral  power,  to  40  votes,  I  would  divide  it 
into  40  districts  or  wards,  each  to  return  one  member  ;  and  in  tliis  way  every  class 
and  every  variety  of  opinion  would  have  a  chance  of  a  fair  representation.  Belgravia, 
Marylebone,  St.  James's,  St.  Giles's,  Whitechapel,  Spitalfields,  &c.,  would  each  and 
all  have  their  members.  I  don't  know  any  better  plan  for  giving  all  opinions  a 
chance  of  being  heard  ;  and,  after  all,  it  is  opinions  that  are  to  be  represented.  If 
the  minority  have  a  faith  that  their  opinions,  and  not  those  of  the  majority,  are 
the  true  ones,  then  let  them  agitate  and  discuss  until  their  principles  are  in  the 
ascendant.  This  is  the  motive  for  political  action  and  the  healthy  agitation  of 
public  life." 


622  LIFE   OF  COBDEN.  [1865. 

elections,  and  it  would  be  curious  to  see  the  proportions  the  voters 
bore  to  the  whole  population.  I  see  it  stated  that  in  1628  there 
was  a  contested  election  for  Coventry,  when  the  successful  candi- 
dates had  a  majority  of  600  votes.  There  must  have  been  a  much 
larger  proportion  of  the  whole  population  voting  then  than  is 
polled  now. 

"  I  was  talking  with  Durrant  Cooper,  one  of  the  leading  mem- 
bers of  our  Sussex  Archseological  Society,  and  told  him  if,  instead 
of  devoting  a  volume  a  year  to  the  remains  of  old  castles  and 
monasteries,  they  would  give  us  some  facts  throwing  light  upon 
the  social  and  political  condition  of  the  inhabitants  in  former 
ages,  it  would  be  a  much  more  useful  employment  of  their  tal- 
ents. It  is  astonishing  what  a  mass  of  facts  of  old  date  are  in 
existence.  The  secretary  of  our  County  Society  once  said  that 
an  itinerary  of  King  John's  reign,  giving  his  whereabouts  eyery 
day  of  his  life,  could  be  given  if  worth  the  trouble,  with  as  much 
accuracy  as  that  of  William  the  Fourth. 

"  I  have  no  recent  letters  from  America.  Goldwin  Smith  says 
he  has  come  back  a  confirmed  radical  and  free  churchman,  and 

less  impatient  because  more  assured  of  liberal  progress His 

pen  is  a  power  in  the  State." 

"  Jan.  22.  (  „  )  —  I  hope  you  have  returned  safely  home, 
and  if  you  are  well  after  your  double  effort  at  Birmingham,  1 
congratulate  you  on  your  bronchial  organization.  I  was  satisfied 
and  pleased  with  your  speech  in  the  Town  Hall.  1  think  you 
took  a  very  wise  course  in  using  the  language  of  warning  to  those 
ruling  factions  who  are  alone  responsible  for  the  present  state  of 
the  Reform  question.  Not  that  it  will  have  the  desired  effect  in 
that  quarter,  where  nothing  but  fear  of  something  worse  happen- 
ing ever  leads  to  the  concession  of  any  reform.  Unfortunately, 
in  the  case  of  the  proposed  change  in  the  representation,  involv- 
ing, as  our  privileged  classes  believe,  the  destruction  of  their  priv- 
ileges, nothing  worse  than  this  spectre  can  be  presented  to  their 
imagination;  and  they  will  contend  against  a  measure  which 
would  make  the  people  the  depository  of  political  power  in  this 
country,  as  they  would  against  a  revolution  of  the  old  French 
model.  But  you  have  done  your  duty  in  introducing  to  them  the 
five  or  six  millions  who  may  at  any  time  set  their  eyes  on  the 
portals  of  the  constitution  with  a  demand  for  admittance  whicli 
could  not  be  resisted ;  and  you  have  given  them  this  warning  in 
language  with  which  no  one,  however  fastidious,  can  quarrel,  and 
yet  which  nobody  can  fail  to  understand.  But,  after  all,  I  some- 
times think  that  we  almost  lend  ourselves  to  an  imposture  in 
arguing  on  these  matters,  as  though  we  believed  we  were  appeal- 
ing to  a  tribunal  which  could  be  swayed  by  appeals  to  reason  and 
the  principles  of  justice." 


Ml.  60.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  623 

Whilst  he  was  in  this  mood  of  discouragement,  he  received 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Gladstone,  written  (Feb.  10)  on  behalf  of  the 
Government  and  by  desire  of  Lord  Palmerston,  offering  him  the 
office  of  Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Audit.  It  was  proposed  to 
reconstitute  the  Board,  and  to  strengthen  and  raise  the  position 
of  its  head;  the  Comptrollership  of  the  Exchequer  was  to  be 
united  to  the  Chair  of  the  Board  of  Audit ;  and  the  salary  was  to 
be  raised  to  2000/.  a  year.  Although  the  duties  of  the  office,  Mr. 
G  ladstone  said,  would  require  very  high  qualities  for  their  proper 
discharge,  they  would  not  be  very  laborious.  The  tender  of  such 
an  office  was  not  to  be  taken  as  an  adequate  acknowledgment  of 
his  distinguished  and  long  continued  public  services,  but  it  was 
the  highest  civil  office  which  the  Government  had  it  in  their 
power  to  give.  After  taking  a  couple  of  days  to  think  over  the 
proposal,  though  probably  his  decision  was  made  at  once,  Cobden 
declined  it :  — 

"Midhurst,  Feb.  13,  1865. 

"My  dear  Mr.  Gladstone, — 

"  I  have  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  letter  written  on 
behalf  of  the  Government,  offering  in  the  kindest  terms  to  place  i/^ 
at  my  option  the  post  of  Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Audit,  about 
to  be  vacated  by  Mr.  liomilly.     Owing  to  the  state  of  my  health, 
I  am  precluded  from  taking  any  office  which  involves  the  per-     / 
formance  of  stated  duties  at  all  seasons  of  the  year,  or  leaves  a 
sense  of  responsibility  for  the  fulfilment  of  those  duties  by  others. 
I  have  for  some  time  been  liable  to  recurring  attacks,  during  cer- 
tain conditions  of  the  atmosphere,  of  what  medical  authorities 
call  nervous  asthma.     While  giving  me  no  pain,  it  disqualifies 
me  for  active  exertion  during  its  visitations,  and  I  am  certain  of 
exemption  from  it  only  in  warm  weather.     I  cannot  live  in  Lon- 
don during  the  season  of  fog  and  frost.     Here  there  are  good  and 
sufficient  reasons  why  I  should  for  the  rest  of  my  days  be  exempt 
from  the  cares  of  salaried  official  life.     But  were  my  case  differ- 
ent, still,  while  sensible  of  the  kind  intentions  which  prompted 
the  offer,  it  would  assuredly  not  be  consulting  my  welfare  to 
place  me  in  the  post  in  question,  with  my  known  views  respect-         y 
ing  the  nature  of  our  finance.     Believing,  as  I  do,  that  while  the    »/ 
income  of  the  Government  is  derived  in  a  greater  proportion  than 
in  any  other  country  from  the  taxation  of  the  humblest  classes, 
its  expenditure  is  to  the  last  degree  wasteful  and  indefensible,  it 
would  be  almost  a  penal  appointment  to  consign  me  for  the  re-       / 
mainder  of  my  life  to  the  task  of  passively  auditing  our  finance  v 
accounts.     I  fear  my  health  would  sicken  and  my  days  he  short- 
ened by  the  nauseous  ordeal.     It  will  be  better  that  I  retain  my 
seat  in  Parliament  as  long  as  I  am  able  in  any  tolerable  degree  to 
perform  its  duties,  where  I  have  at  least  the  opportunity  of  pro- 


624  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1865. 

testing,  however  unavailingly,  against  the  Government  expendi- 
ture. But  I  am  wandering  from  the  text  of  your  kind  letter,  for 
which  I  heartily  thank  you,  especially  for  the  postscript/  and  I 
remain, 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

"ElCHARD   COBDEN." 

In  acknowledging  the  letter,  Mr.  Gladstone  expressed  his  satis- 
faction that  Cobden  so  clearly  appreciated  the  spirit  in  which  the 
offer  had  been  made  by  the  Government,  and  especially  by  Lord 
Palmerston.  He  went  on  to  add  that  he  did  not  think  the  most 
faitliful  discharge  of  the  duties  of  the  office  would  have  made  the 
incumbent  of  it  in  any  sense  whatever  responsible  for  the  ex- 
penditure of  the  country,  or  would  even  have  brought  it  before 
him  in  any  marked  manner  in  the  career  of  ordinary  duty.  None 
of  Cobden's  friends  have  ever  doubted  the  propriety  of  his  de- 
cision, though  it  is  within  the  range  of  possibility  that  if  it  had 
been  otherwise  his  days  might  have  been  prolonged. 

At  this  time  Mr.  Bright  wrote  to  him  (Feb.  23),  saying  that 
Mr.  Seymour  Fitzgerald  was  to  talk  on  Canadian  Fortifications 
some  day  soon.  ''  I  wish,"  Mr.  Bright  said,  "  that  you  could  be 
in  the  House  when  he  comes  on.  You  understand  the  details  of 
the  question  better  than  any  other  man  in  the  House,  and  I  think 
you  could  knock  over  the  stupid  proposition  to  spend  English 
money  in  fortifications  at  Quebec.  I  shall  probably  say  some- 
thing if  you  are  not  there,  but  I  hope  the  matter  may  not  be 
debated  till  you  are  in  town."  A  week  later,  Cobden  received 
the  last  letter  that  he  was  destined  to  have  from  his  friend.  It 
was  a  note  (March  3),  saying  by  what  train  Mr.  Bright  would 
come  down  to  Midhurst  on  the  following  afternoon.  Cobden 
now  occasionally  ventured  out  into  the  air  during  the  middle  of 
the  day,  and  he  and  Mr.  Bright  took  easy  walks  together  on  the 
terrace  at  Dunford  or  in  the  lanes.  On  one  occasion,  looking  in 
the  direction  of  the  church,  Cobden  said,  "  My  boy  is  buried  there, 
and  it  will  not  be  long  before  I  am  there  with  him."  It  was, 
indeed,  little  more  than  a  month. 

Three  final  letters  belong  to  this  date  :  — 

''Feb.  23.  {To  Mr.  T.  B.  Potter.)  — I  have  forwarded  Lord 
's  letter  to  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith.    I  observe  that  he  assigns  as 


the  main  cause  for  the  hostility  of  the  ruling  class  (for  the  masses 
we  know  are  on  the  other  side)  to  the  North  to  the  fact  that  the 
Americans  have  (previous  to  the  war  as  well  as  since)  shown  a 
disposition  to  go  to  w^ar  with  us.  This  is  the  old  indictment,  and 
I  have  but  one  answer  to  it.     The  United  States  maintained  pre- 

1  The  postscript  was  to  the  effect  that,  if  he  were  disposed  to  talk  the  matter 
over,  Mr.  Gladstone  was  at  his  service. 


Mr.  60.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  625 

vious  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  an  army  of  17,000  men 
and  a  navy  of  7,000,  and  for  ten  years  previous  had  never  com- 
missioned a  line-of-battle  ship.  Yet  in  her  dealings  with  Eng- 
land and  Europe,  with  their  standing  armies  of  half  a  million  of 
men,  and  their  navies  of  scores  of  line-of-battle  ships,  the  United 
States  carried,  we  are  now  told,  matters  with  a  high  hand  1  Was 
there  ever  a  stronger  admission  of  the  superiority  of  moral  force 
and  of  republicanism  ?  When  a  Bobadil  or  a  Drawcansir  is  rep- 
resented on  the  stage,  he  is  always  armed  to  the  teeth.  But  here 
you  have  an  unarmed  nation  bullying  great  military  and  naval 
powers.  Would  to  Heaven  that  France,  Russia,  Austria,  England, 
Italy,  and  Prussia  would  follow  this  fashion  of  bullying !  .  .  .  . 

"  What  is  running  in  Lord  's  head  is  the  common  fallacy 

of  confounding  the  language  of  certain  newspapers  and  parties  in 
America  with  the  acts  of  the  Government.  Is  it  fair  to  forget 
that  there  are  nearly  two  millions  of  persons  who  were  born  in 
Ireland  living  in  the  United  States,  and  perhaps  as  many  more 
the  offspring  of  Irish  parents,  all  of  whom  are  animated  with  the 
most  intense  hatred  towards  England  ?  New  York  city  alone  at 
the  last  census  had  260,000  Irish,  actually  more  than  the  popula- 
tion of  Dublin  in  1851,  thus  making  New  York  the  greatest  Irish 
city  in  the  world.  These  people  have  their  newspapers,  their 
orators,  and  they  have  votes.  Considering  how  demonstrative 
they  are,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  their  voices  are  heard  at  every 
period  of  excitem.ent.  But  what  shall  be  said  of  the  fairness  of 
those  Englishmen,  who,  knowing  that  the  misery  and  depopula- 
tion of  Ireland  has  sprung  from  centuries  of  oppression  and  out- 
rageous injustice  on  the  part  of  England,  follow  the  Irish  to 
America,  and,  instead  of  frankly  acknowledging  that  thei/  have 
grounds  of  resentment  towards  ics,  fasten  their  quarrel  on  the 
Americans  who  have  given  them  an  asylum ! 

"  Shall  I  confess  the  thought  that  troubles  me  in  connection 
with  this  subject  ?  I  have  seen  with  disgust  the  altered  tone 
with  which  America  has  been  treated  since  she  was  believed  to 
have  committed  suicide,  or  something  like  it.  In  our  diplomacy, 
our  press,  and  with  our  public  speakers,  all  hastened  to  kick  the 
dead  lion.  Now  in  a  few  months  everybody  will  know  that  the 
North  will  triumph,  and  what  troubles  me  is  lest  I  should  live  to 
see  our  ruling  class  —  which  can  understand  and  respect  power 
better  than  any  other  class —  grovel  once  more,  and  more  basely 
than  before,  to  the  giant  of  democracy.  This  would  not  only 
inspire  me  with  disgust  and  indignation,  but  with  shame  and 
humiliation.  I  think  I  see  signs  that  it  is  coming.  The  Times  is 
less  insolent  and  Lord  Palmerston  is  more  civil." 

"  March  15.  (To  Mr.  Bright?)  —  I  have  read  through  the  whole 
of  the  debate  on  Monday.     The  alteration  of  tone  is  very  remark- 

40 


626  LIFE   OF   COBDEN.  [1865. 

able.  It  is  clear  that  the  homage  which  was  refused  to  justice 
and  humanity  will  be  freely  given  to  success.  No  part  of  your 
speech  was  to  me  more  acceptable  than  where  you  threw  in  the 
parenthetical  reflection  that  the  sacrifices  of  the  North  were  not 
to  put  Bourbons  on  the  tlirone  of  France  or  to  keep  the  Turk  in 
Europe.  Still,  do  not  let  us  deceive  ourselves.  There  will  be  a 
back  reckoning.  It  is  all  very  well  to  talk  of  future  peace  and 
good-will,  but  the  Americans  will  feel  that  they  have  a  substantial 
wrong  to  redress  with  this  country.  In  international  law  (if 
there  be  such  a  thing)  a  nation  is  a  unit,  and  the  whole  is  respon- 
sible to  another  people  for  the  acts  of  its  individuals.  Parties 
will  from  this  moment  be  looking  for  political  capital  in  America 
to  the  resentment  everywhere  ielt  against  our  shipbuilders  and 
merchants.  There  is  not  an  aspirant  for  the  Presidency,  even  in- 
cluding our  dear  friend  Sumner,  who  will  not  be  ready  to  take 
the  stump  on  the  ground  of  '  indemnity  to  American  citizens  for 
losses  by  the-  Alabama!  I  will  trust  none  of  their  leading  poli- 
ticians except  Lincoln,  whose  political  life  closes  with  his  next 
term. 

"Now  the  money  question  is  really  the  smallest  part  of  the 
issue  between  the  two  countries  arising  out  of  the  experience  we 
have  had  of  the  present  state  of  international  maritime  law,  and 
the  interest  we  have,  beyond  all  other  countries,  in  altering  it. 
But  where  is  the  statesmanship  to  deal  with  the  problem,  when 
nobody  seems  to  look  beyond  the  exigencies  of  the  next  twenty- 
four  hours  ?  I  feel  confident  there  can  never  be  a  war  between 
us  and  America.  The  mass  of  the  people  here  must  every  day 
feel  that  they  have  a  far  higher  stake  in  the  United  States  than 
in  the  country  of  their  birth. 

"  I  was  glad  you  brought  out  so  clearly  the  homestead  law. 
When  it  is  fairly  driven  home  to  the  apprehension  of  our  dull 
landless  millions  that  the  people  of  the  United  States  hold  the 
largest  and  richest  unoccupied  domain  in  the  world,  not  for  great 
feudal  monopolists  like  the  Demidoffs  or  the  Sutherlands,  not 
even  for  the  exclusive  use  of  American  citizens,  but  in  trust  for 
the  landless  millions  aforesaid,  to  every  one  of  whom  is  offered  a 
farm  as  large  as  he  can  cultivate,  and  a  vote  six  months  after  his 
settlement  "(which  is  the  rule  in  the  West),  it  will  be  impossible 
to  marshal  in  hostile  array  the  masses  of  this  country  against  that 
people.  But  though  the  governing  classes  will  not  be  able  to  in- 
volve us  in  war,  they  will,  I  think,  if  they  continue  to  hold  their 
present  rule  in  this  country,  bring  on  us  some  great  humiliation 
from  America,  which  never  could  happen  if  the  people  as  a  whole 
controlled  the  politics  of  the  state." 

"March  20.  {To  Colonel  Cole) — The  most  interesting  debate 
of  the  session  hitherto  has  been  on  Canadian  affairs.     This  is  a 


^T.  60.]  CORRESPONDENCE.  627 

subject  of  increasing  interest,  and  the  projected  confederation  of 
the  British  North  American  colonies  will  bring  it  into  great 
prominence  this  session.  It  seems  to  be  generally  accepted  here 
as  a  desirable  change,  though  I  fail  to  discover  any  immediate  in- 
terest which  the  British  public  have  in  the  matter.  There  is  no 
proposal  to  relieve  us  from  the  expense  and  risk  of  pretending  to 
defend  those  colonies  from  the  United  States — a  task  which,  by 
the  way,  everybody  admits  to  be  beyond  our  power.  Then  I 
cannot  see  what  substantial  interest  the  British  people  have  in 
the  connection  to  compensate  them  for  guaranteeing  three  or 
four  millions  of  North  Americans  living  in  Canada,  &c.,  against 
another  community  of  Americans  living  in  their  neighborhood. 
We  are  told  indeed  of  the  '  loyalty '  of  the  Canadians ;  but  this 
is  an  ironical  term  to  apply  to  people  who  neither  pay  our  taxes 
nor  obey  our  laws,  nor  hold  themselves  liable  to  fight  our  battles, 
who  would  repudiate  our  right  to  the  sovereignty  over  an  acre  of 
their  territory,  and  who  claim  the  right  of  imposing  their  own 
customs  duties,  even  to  the  exclusion  of  our  manufactures.  We 
are  two  peoples  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  and  it  is  a  perilous 
delusion  to  both  parties  to  attempt  to  keep  up  a  sham  connection 
and  dependence  whicli  will  snap  asunder  if  it  should  ever  be  put 
to  the  strain  of  stern  reality.  It  is  all  very  well  for  our  Cockney 
newspapers  to  talk  of  defending  Canada  at  all  hazards.  It  would 
be  just  as  possible  for  the  United  States  to  sustain  Yorkshire  in 
a  war  with  England,  as  for  us  to  enable  Canada  to  contend  against 
the  United  States.  It  is  simply  an  impossibility.  Nor  must  we 
forget  that  the  only  serious  danger  of  a  quarrel  between  those  two 
neighbors  arises  from  the  connection  of  Canada  with  this  country. 
In  my  opinion  it  is  for  the  interest  of  both  that  we  should  as 
speedily  as  possible  sever  the  political  thread  by  which  we  are  as 
communities  connected,  and  leave  the  individuals  on  both  sides 
to  cultivate  the  relations  of  commerce  and  friendly  intercourse  as 
with  other  nations.  I  have  felt  an  interest  in  this  confederation 
scheme,  because  I  thought  it  was  a  step  in  the  direction  of  an 
amicable  separation.^  lam  afraid  from  the  last  telegrams  tliat 
there  may  be  some  difficulty,  either  in  your  province  or  in  Lower 
Canada,  in  carrying  out  the  project.  Whatever  may  be  the  wish 
of  the  colonies  will  meet  with  the  concurrence  of  our  Government 
and  Parliament.  We  have  recognized  their  right  to  control  their 
own  fate,  even  to  the  point  of  asserting  their  independence  when- 
ever they  think  fit,  and  which  we  know  to  be  only  a  question  of 
time.  All  this  makes  our  present  responsible  position  towards 
them  truly  one-sided  and  ridiculous.  There  seems  to  l^  some- 
thing like  a  dead-lock  in  the  political  machinery  of  tlie  Canadas, 
which  has  driven  their  leading  statesmen  into  the  measure  of 
confederation.     I  suspect  that  there  has  been  some  demoralization 


628  LIFE   OP   COBDEN.  [1865. 

and  corruption  in  that  quarter,  and  that  it  is  in  part  an  effort  to 
purity  tlie  political  system  by  letting  in  new  blood.  There  is  also, 
I  think,  an  inherent  weakness  in  the  parody  of  our  old  English 
constitution,  which  is  perlbrnied  on  the  miniature  scenes  of  the 
colonial  capitals,  with  their  speeches  from  the  throne,  votes  of 
confidence,  appeals  to  the  country,  changes  of  ministry,  &c.,  and 
all  about  such  trumpery  issues  that  the  game  at  last  becomes 
ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  both  spectators  and  actors." 

A  few  days  after  Mr.  Bright  had  left  him,  Cobden  found  him- 
y  self  unable  to  resist  the  desire  to  take  a  part  in  the  discussion  on 
^  the  Canadian  Fortifications,  and  on  tlie  21st  of  March,  in  bitter 
weather,  he  travelled  up  to  London,  accompanied  by  Mrs.  Cobden 
and  his  second  daughter.  Instead  of  going  as  usual  to  the  house 
of  Mr.  Paulton  or  some  other  friend,  he  had  taken  locigings  in  Suf- 
folk Street ;  it  was  close  to  the  Athenaeum,  and  as  near  as  he  could 
get  to  the  House  of  Commons.  On  his  arrival  at  his  journey's 
end,  after  writing  a  few  letters,  according  to  his  indefatigable  cus- 
^  tom,  he  was  immediately  prostrated  by  an  attack  of  asthma.  He ' 
lay  through  the  bleak  days  watching  the  smoke  blown  from  the 
chimneys  of  the  houses  opposite,  and  vainly  hoping  that  the  wind 
would  change  its  quarter  from  the  merciless  east.  At  the  end  of 
a  week  he  seemed  convalescent,  and  was  allowed  to  see  one  or  two 
friends.  The  apparent  recovery  only  lasted  a  few  hours,  and  was 
followed  by  a  sharper  attack  than  before.  For  a  day  or  two  his 
wife  and  daugliter  watched  with  painful  alternations  of  hope  and 
fear.  On  the  1st  of  April  the  asthma  became  congestive,  and 
bronchitis  supervened.  It  was  now  evident  that  he  would  not  re- 
cover. He  was  able  to  make  his  will,  and  occasionally  to  say  a 
few  words  to  those  who  were  watching  by  his  bedside. 

Mr.  Bright  called  in  the  evening,  but  was  not  allowed  to  see 
him.  Early  the  next  morning  (Sunday,  April  2)  he  called  again ; 
and  as  all  chance  of  a  rally  had  now  vanished,  he  took  his  place 
by  the  side  of  the  dying  man.  One  other  friend  was  in  the  room, 
Mr.  George  Moffatt,  whose  intimacy  with  Cobden  had  been  long 
and  sincere.  They  saw  that  his  end  was  very  close.  As  the  bells 
of  St.  Martin's  Church  were  ringing  for  the  morning  service,  the 
mists  of  death  began  to  settle  heavily  on  his  brow,  and  his  ardent, 
courageous,  and  brotherly  spirit  soon  passed  tranquilly  away. 
Many  tears  were  shed  in  homes  where  Cobden's  name  was  revered 
and  loved  when  the  tidings  that  he  was  dead  reached  them. 

At  the  time  of  his  death  he  was  within  two  months  of  the  com- 
pletion of  his  sixty-first  year.  One  afternoon  in  the  summer  of 
1856,  he  and  a  friend  took  it  into  their  heads,  as  there  was  nothing 
of  importance  going  on  in  the  House,  to  stroll  into  the  Abbey. 
'  His  friend  had  never  been  inside  before,  as  he  confessed  -that  he 
had  never  been  inside  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  though  he  had  passed 


JEt.60.]  last  days   and   DEATH.  629 

it  every  day  of  his  life  for  fifteen  years.  They  strolled  about  among 
the  monuments  for  a  couple  of  hours,  and  the  natural  remark  fell 
from  his  companion  that  perhaps  one  day  the  name  of  Cobden  too 
would  figure  among  the  heroes.  "  I  hope  not,"  said  Cobden,  "  I 
hope  not.  My  spirit  could  not  rest  in  peace  among  these  men  of 
v/ar.  No,  no,  cathedrals  are  not  meant  to  contain  the  remains  of 
such  men  as  Bright  and  me."  He  was  buried  by  the  side  of  his  \^y^ 
son  in  the  little  churchyard  at  Lavington,  on  the  slope  of  the 
hill  among  the  pine  woods.  A  large  concourse  gathered  round  his 
grave,  some  of  them  illustrious,  others  of  them  obscure,  some  his 
companions  in  past  victories,  others  his  fellow- workers  in  causes 
that  still  seemed  forlorn ;  but  all  bound  together  for  the  moment  in 
attachment  to  the  memory  .of  a  frank  and  cordial  friend,  and  a 
clear-sighted  and  faithful  citizen. 

"  Before  we  left  the  house,"  Mr.  Bright  has  told  us,  "  standing 
by  me  and  leaning  on  the  coffin,  was  his  sorrowing  daughter,  one 
whose  attachment  to  her  father  seems  to  have  been  a  passion 
scarcely  equalled  among  daughters.     She  said,  '  My  father  used  to 

like  me  very  much  to  read  to  him  the  Sermon  on  ^S^HJ^IounSl 

His  own  life  was  to  a  large  extent  —  I  speak  it  with  reverence 
and  with  hesitation  —  a  sermon  based  upon  that  best,  that  greatest 
of  all  sermons.     His  was  a  life  of  perpetual  self-sacrifice." 

On  the  day  after  Cobden's  death,  when  the  House  of  Commons 
met,  the  Prime  Minister  commemorated  the  loss  which  they  had 
all  sustained  in  a  few  kindly  sentences.  It  was  reserved  for  Mr. 
Disraeli  to  strike  a  deeper  note.  "  There  is  this  consolation,"  he 
said,  "  remaining  to  us  when  we  remember  our  unequalled  and 
irreparable  losses,  that  these  great  men  are  not  altogether  lost  to 
us,  that  their  words  will  be  often  quoted  in  this  House,  that  their 
examples  will  often  be  referred  to  and  appealed  to,  and  that  even 
their  expressions  may  form  a  part  of  our  discussions.  There  are, 
indeed,  I  may  say,  some  members  of  Parliament,  who,  though  they 
may  not  be  present,  are  still  members  of  this  House,  are  inde- 
pendent of  dissolutions,  of  the  caprices  of  constituencies,  and  even 
of  the  course  of  time.  I  think  that  Mr.  Cobden  was  one  of  these 
men." 

While  the  House  was  still  under  an  impression  from  these 
words  which  was  almost  religious,  Mr.  Bright,  yielding  to  a  marked 
and  silent  expectation,  rose  and  tried  to  say  how  every  expression 
of  sympathy  that  he  had  heard  had  been  most  grateful  to  his  heart. 
"  But  the  time,"  he  went  on  in  broken  accents,  "  which  has  elapsed 
since  in  my  presence  the  manliest  and  gentlest  spirit  that  ever 
quitted  or  tenanted  a  human  form  took  its  flight  is  so  short,  that  I 
dare  not  even  attempt  to  give  utterance  to  the  feelings  by  which 
I  am  oppressed.     I  shall  leave  to  some  calmer  moment  when  I 


630  LIFE   OF   COBDEN. 

may  have  an  opportunity  of  speaking  before  some  portion  of  my 
countrymen  the  lesson  which  I  think  may  be  learned  from  the  life 
and  character  of  my  friend.  I  have  only  to  say  that,  after  twenty 
years  of  most  intimate  and  almost  brotherly  friendship,  I  little 
knew  how  much  I  loved  him  until  I  liad  lost  him."  As  Homer 
says  of  Nestor  and  Ulysses,  so  of  these  two  it  may  be  said  that 
they  never  spoke  diversely  either  in  the  assembly  or  in  the  coun- 
cil, but  were  always  of  one  mind,  and  together  advised  the  English 
with  understanding  and  with  counsel  how  all  might  be  for  the  best. 


CHAPTER    XXXVIII. 

CONCLUSION. 

I  A  CHARACTER  like  that  of  Cobden  calls  for  no  elaborate  attempt 
at  analysis.     In  motive  and  purpose  he  was  the  most  candid  and 

I  direct  of  mankind.  Though  he  was  amply  endowed  with  that 
practical  wisdom  which  Aristotle  describes  as  the  first  quality  of 
the  man  who  meddles  with  government,  all  his  aims,  his  sympa- 
thies, his  maxims,  were  as  open  and  transparent  as  the  day.  No- 
body could  be  more  free  from  the  spirit  of  Machiavellian  calcula- 
tion. He  had  in  a  full  measure  the  gift  of  tact,  but  it  came  from 
innate  considerateness  and  good  feeling,  and  not  either  from  social 
art  or  from  hidden  subtlety  of  nature.  Of  Cobden's  qualities  as  a 
public  man  enough  has  been  said  already.^  Some  of  his  private 
traits  may  well  be  recorded  beside  them. 

It  is  easy  to  know  how  a  nature  so  open  and  expansive  would 
win  the  attachment  of  friends.  In  his  own  house,  where  public 
men  do  not  always  seek  the  popularity  that  is  the  very  breath  of 
their  nostrils  abroad,  he  was  tender,  solicitous,  forbearing,  never 
exacting.  Most  of  his  preparation  for  speeches  and  pamphlets 
was  done  amid  the  bustle  of  a  young  household,  and  he  preferred 
to  work  amid  the  sociable  play  of  his  little  children.  His  thor- 
oughly pleasant  and  genial  temper  made  him  treat  everybody  who 

y  approached  him  as  a  i'riend.  Few  men  have  attracted  friends  of 
^  such  widely  different  type.  The  hard-headed  man  of  business 
»  and  the  fastidious  man  of  letters  were  equally  touched  by  the  in- 
terest of  his  conversation  and  the  charm  of  his  character.  There 
must  have  been  sometliing  remarkable  about  one  who  won  tlie 
admiration  of  Prosper  Merimee,  and  the  cordial  friendship  of  Mr. 
Goldwin  Smith,  and  the  devoted  service  of  strenuous  practical 

1  See  above,  Chapter  IX. 


CONCLUSION.  631 

men  like  Mr.  Slagg  and  Mr.  Thomasson.  His  exceeding  amiabil- 
ity was  not  insipid.  He  was  never  bitter,  but  he  knew  how  to 
hit  hard,  and  if  a  friend  did  wrong  and  public  mischief  came  of  it, 
Cobden  did  not  shrink  from  the  duty  of  dealing  faithfully  with 
him.  We  have  seen  with  what  vigor  he  denounced  the  doings  of 
Sir  John  Bowring  in  China,  and  the  supposed  backslidings  of  Sir 
William  Molesworth  in  the  Cabinet.^ 

He  usually  extended  his  good-nature  even  to  the  busy-bodies 
who  pester  public  men  with  profitless  correspondence.  When 
strangers  who  wrote  to  him  committed  the  absurd  offence  of 
subscribing  to  their  letters  a  liieroglyphic  that  no  one  could  read, 
he  only  said  to  them  in  reply  that  it  was  a  pity  that  some  system 
of  rewards  and  punishments  could  not  be  devised  to  make  people 
at  least  sign  their  own  names  plainly.  It  was  very  seldom  tiiat 
he  allowed  himself  to  be  provoked  into  dealing  a  blow  to  the  im- 
pertinence which  used  to  protest  against  his  un-English  conduct, 
his  want  of  patriotism,  and  the  other  cries  of  that  stupid  party 
which  is  not  by  any  means  exclusively  composed  of  Tories.  Old 
soldiers  in  the  army  of  the  League  especially  were  apt  to  suppose 
that  this  accident  gave  them  a  right  to  lecture  him.  One  of  them, 
an  entire  stranger  to  Cobden,  wrote  a  vehement  protest  against 
his  un-English  conduct  in  siding  with  the  North  in  the  American 
war,  and  justified  his  remonstrance  by  the  fact  that  he  had  once 
belonged  to  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League.  "  Permit  me  to  say,"  said 
Cobden,  "  that  you  must  have  been  out  of  place  in  our  ranks,  for 
no  one  can  be  a  consistent  enemy  of  monopoly,  who  does  not  tol- 
erate an  honest  difference  of  opinion  on  every  question.  Your 
note  is  a  laughable  assumption  of  superiority  and  authority,  where 
I  can  recognize  neither."  ^ 

It  was  his  fortune  to  be  engaged  in  incessant  conflict  all 
through  his  life,  and  we  have  had  occasion  to  mark  the  dauntless 
buoyancy  with  which  he  sprung  time  after  time  down  to  the  very 
end  into  the  breach,  and  waged  his  active  battle  almost  single- 
handed  against  Lord  Palmerston  and  his  immovable  host.  What 
makes  it  the  more  admirable  is  that  Cobden  was  not  by  nature  in- 
clined to  this  ceaseless  attitude  of  oppugnancy.  There  is  a  story 
that,  going  down  to  the  House  on  one  of  these  occasions,  he  said 
to  his  companion,  "  I  hate  having  to  beard  in  this  way  hundreds 
of  well-meaning  wrong-headed  people,  and  to  face  tlie  look  of 
rage  with  which  they  regard  me.  I  had  a  thousand  times  rather 
not  have  to  do  it,  but  it  must  be  done."     Even  in  his  sharpest 

1  See  above,  p.  417.  A  sharper  dispute  took  place  between  Cobden  and  Sir 
William  MoU-sworth  on  the  3(1  of  August,  1855.  The  latter  had  gone  out  of  his 
way  to  use  some  hard  words  about  the  peace  party.  Cobden  showed,  with  a  good 
deal  of  pungency,  that  until  he  went  into  the  Cabinet  Sir  William  Molesworth 
avowedly  shareil  his  opinions  to  the  letter.  —  Haiisard,  cxxxix. 
2  November  12.  1864. 


632  LIFE   OF  COBDEN. 

speeches  we  are  conscious  of  a  sentiment  of  this  kind.  He  was 
unsparing  in  the  trenchancy  of  his  argument,  but  he  never  sought 
to  hurt  individuals,  not  even  Lord  Palmerston.  "  I  believe  he  is 
perfectly  sincere,"  Cobden  said,  "  for  the  longer  I  live,  the  more  I 
believe  in  men's  sincerity."  There  could  be  no  better  sign  of  a 
pure  and  generous  character,  than  that  so  honorable  a  conviction 
as  this  should  have  been  the  lesson  of  his  experience. 

Cobden's  conversation,  like  his  public  addresses,  was  simple, 
reasonable,  devoid  of  striking  figures  of  speech,  but  bright,  eager, 
and  expansive  ;  and,  as  Merimee  said,^  it  was  the  outcome  of  an 
extremely  interesting  mind,  and  unlike  English  conversation  in 
being  quite  free  from  commonplaces.  On  religious  questions  he 
was  for  the  most  part  silent.  When  he  was  in  the  country,  he 
went  to  church  like  other  people.  All  his  personal  habits  were 
in  the  highest  degree  simple  and  frugal.  He  was  indifi'erent  to 
the  pleasures  of  the  table,  he  did  not  care  to  acquire  fine  things 
of  any  kind,  and  he  had  none  of  the  passion  of  the  collector.  Pol- 
/    itics  were  the  one  commanding  interest  of  his  life. 

But  it  is  well  once  more  to  note  that  what  Cobden  talked  about 
and  cared  for  was  real  politics,  not  the  game  of  party.  Politics  in 
/  his  sense  meant  the  large  workings  of  policy,  not  the  manoeuvres  * 
of  members  of  Parliament.  When  the  newspaper  was  unfolded  in 
the  morning,  that  furnished  him  and  his  friends  or  his  guests  with 
topics  for  the  day.  Events  all  over  the  world  were  deliberately 
discussed  in  relation  to  wide  and  definite  general  principles  ;  their 
bearings  were  worked  out  in  the  light  of  what  Cobden  conceived  to 
be  the  great  economical  and  social  movements  of  the  world.  This 
is  what  makes  a  real  school  in  politics.  It  was  in  the  same  spirit 
that  Cobden  read  books  and  talked  with  bookish  men.  His  point 
of  view  was  always  actual,  not  in  the  sense  of  the  vulgar  practical 
/man,  but  social  and  political.  When  he  read  a  book,  he  read  it 
v/  as  all  reading  should  be  done,  with  a  view  to  life  and  practice,  and 
not  in  the  way  of  refined  self-indulgence.  The  Life  of  Eliot  made 
him  think  of  the  state  of  the  franchise  in  those  old  times,  and 
Motley's  History  of  the  Netherlands,  which  interested  him  greatly, 
suggested  to  him  that  Queen  Elizabeth  carried  her  aversion  to 
European  crusading  in  the  Palmerstonian  sense  almost  too  far.^ 

^  See  above,  p.  133. 

2  "  Why,  when  I  read  Motley's  History  of  the  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic— tm 
admirable  book  which  everybody  should  read, — when  I  read  the  history  of  the 
Netherlands,  and  when  I  see  how  that  struggling  comnumity,  with  their  whole 
country  desolated  by  Spanish  troops,  and  every  town  lighted  up  daily  with  the  fires 
of  persecution,  —  when  I  see  the  accounts  of  what  passed  when  the  envoys  came  to 
Queen  Elizabeth  and  asked  for  aid,  how  she  is  huckstering  for  money  while  they  are 
begging  for  help  to  their  religion,  —  I  declare  that,  with  all  my  principles  of  non- 
intervention, I  am  almost  ashamed  of  old  Queen  Bess.  And  then  there  were  Bur- 
leigh, Walsingham,  and  the  rest,  who  were,  if  possible,  harder  and  more  difficult  to 
deal  with  than  their  mistress.  Why,  they  carried  out  in  its  unvarnished  selfishness 
a  national  British  policy  ;  they  had  no  other  idea  of  a  policy  but  a  national  British 


CONCLUSION.  633 

To  the  Ilissus  we  may  confess  that  Cobden  was  a  little  unjust,  but 
the  point  of  his  good-humored  sarcasm  has  been  much  misrepre- 
sented. He  was,  lie  said  in  his  last  speech,  a  great  advocate  of 
culture  of  every  kind.  What  he  sought  was  that  young  men 
should  be  led  to  add  to  classical  learning  a  great  knowledge  of 
modern  affairs,  and  the  habits  of  serious  political  thought  about 
their  own  time.^ 

His  own  industry  in  acquiring  the  knowledge  that  was  neces- 
sary for  his  purpose  was  enormous.  His  pamphlets  show  his  ap- 
petite for  blue-books,  and  as  with  other  sensible  men  it  was  an 
appetite  which  led  him  not  merely  to  swallow,  but  to  digest  and 
assimilate.  He  was  a  constant  student  of  Hansard,  and  for  one 
who  seeks  for  purposes  of  action  or  controversy  to  make  himself 
well  versed  in  the  political  transactions  of  the  present  century, 
there  is  no  book  so  well  worth  the  labor  of  ransacking.  Cobden 
was  never  afraid  of  labor  that  he  thought  would  be  useful ;  he 
cheerfully  undertook  even  the  drudgery  of  translation,  and  that 
too  in  a  case  where  he  did  not  in  his  heart  expect  to  make  any 
important  mark  on  opinion. ^ 

People  have  often  wondered  how  it  was  that  a  man  who  showed 
so  remarkable  a  capacity  for  understanding  public  business,  should 
have  made  so  little  of  a  success  of  his  own  affairs.    The  same  ques- 

policy,  and  they  carried  it  out  with  a  degree  of  selfishness  amounting  to  downright 
avarice. 

**He  next  quotes  Chatham.  Do  you  suppose  that  Chatham  was  running  about 
the  world  protecting  and  looking  after  other  people's  affairs  ?    Why,  he  went  abroad 

in  the  spirit  of  a  commercial  traveller  more  than  any  Minister  we  ever  had 

At  that  time,  Lord  Chatham  thought,  'that  by  making  war  upon  France  and  seizing 
the  Canadas,  he  was  bringing  custom  to  the  English  merchants  and  manufacturers  ; 
and  he  publicly  declared  that  he  made  those  conquests  for  the  very  purpose  of  giving 
a  monopoly  of  those  conquered  markets  to  Englishmen  at  home ;  and  he  said  he 

would  not  allow  the  colonists  to  manufacture  a  horseshoe  for  themselves 

Now,  if  I  take  Chatham's  great  son,  if  I  take  the  second  Pitt,  when  he  entered 
upon  wars  he  immediately  began  the  conquest  of  colonies.  "When  he  entered 
upon  war  with  France  in  1793,  and  for  three  or  four  years  afterwards,  our  navy  was 
employed  in  little  else  than  seizing  colonies,  the  islands  of  the  West  Indies,  &c., 
whether  they  belonged  to  France,  Holland,  or  Denmark,  or  other  nations,  and  he 
believed  by  that  means  he  could  make  war  profitable."  —  Speeches,  ii.  350,  351. 

1  The  passage  was  prompted  by  a  little  slip  in  a  leading  article  in  the  Times, 
which  had  made  one  of  the  greatest  of  American  livers  run  up  hill  a  great  number 
of  miles  into  another  river,  and  then  these  two  united  (the  waters  of  which  are 
never  blended  at  all)  were  made  to  flow  into  a  third  river,  into  which,  as  it  hai)pens, 
neither  of  them  pours  a  drop.  How  preposterous,  said  Cobden,  that  young  gentle- 
men who  know  all  about  the  geography  of  ancient  Greece,  should  be  unable,  if 
asked  to  point  out  Chicago  on  the  map,  to  go  within  a  thousand  miles  of  it. 
**  When  I  was  at  Athens,"  he  said,  "  I  sallied  out  one  summer  morning  to  see  the 
far-famed  river,  the  Ilissus,  and  after  walking  for  some  hundred  yards  up  what  ap- 
peared to  be  the  bed  of  a  winter  torrent,  I  came  up  to  a  number  of  Athenian  laun- 
dresses, and  I  found  they  had  dammed  up  this  far-famed  classic  river,  and  that  they 
were  using  every  drop  of  water  for  their  linen  and  such  sanitary  purposes.  I  any, 
why  should  not  the  young  gentlemen  who  are  taught  all  about  the  geogmphy  of  the 
Ilissus  know  something  about  the  geography  of  the  Mississippi,  the  Ohio,  and  the 
Missouri  ?  "  —  Sjjeechcs,  ii.  364. 

2  In  1858  he  translated  M.  Chevalier's  pamphlet  on  Gold. 


/ 


634  LIFE   OF   COBDEN. 

tion  might  be  asked  of  Burke  and  of  Pitt,  both  of  them  economists 
and  financiers  of  the  first  order,  yet  both  of  whoin  allowed  their 
private  affairs  to  fall  into  embarrassment  and  ruin.  One  obvious 
answer  is  that  their  minds  were  too  much  absorbed  in  public  in- 
^terests  to  have  any  room  left  for  that  close  attention  to  private 
^  interests  which  must  always  be  required  to  raise  a  poor  man  into 
prosperity.  Cobden,  it  is  true,  deliberately  attempted  material 
success,  and  did  not  attempt  it  with  prudence,  The  failure  was 
in  fact  due  to  the  very  qualities  which  made  liim  successful  in 
larger  affairs.  His  penetration  shows  to  a  man  of  this  kind  w^ays 
in  which  money  may  be  made,  and  his  energy  naturally  incites 
him  to  try  to  make  it.  Cobden  was  penetrating,  energetic,  and 
sanguine.  "  The  records  of  unfortunate  commerce,"  as  Mr.  Bage- 
hot  said,  "  abound  in  instances  of  men  who  have  been  unsuccess- 
ful, because  they  had  great  mind,  great  energy,  and  great  hope, 
but  had  not  money  in  proportion."  ^ 

One  obvious  criticism  on  Cobden's  work,  and  it  has  often  been 
made,  is  that  he  was  expecting  the  arrival  of  a  great  social  reform 
from  the  mere  increase  and  more  equal  distribution  of  material 
wealth.  He  ought  to  have  known,  they  say,  that  what  our  soci- 
ety needs  is  the  diffusion  of  intellectual  light  and  the  fire  of  a 
higher  morality.  It  is  even  said  by  some  that  Free  Trade  has 
done  harm  rather  than  good,  because  it  has  flooded  the  country 
with  wealth  which  men  have  never  been  properly  taught  how  to 
use.  In  other  words,  material  progress  has  been  out  of  all  pro- 
portion to  moral  progress. 
/^  Now  nobody  had  better  reason  to  know  this  than  Cobden.  The 
perpetual  chagrin  of  his  life  was  the  obstinate  refusal  of  those  on 
whom  he  had  helped  to  shower  wealth  and  plenty  to  hear  what 
he  had  to  say  on  the  social  ideals  to  which  their  wealth  should 
lead.  At  last  he  was  obliged  to  say  to  himself,  as  he  wrote  to  a 
friend  :  "  Nations  have  not  yet  learnt  to  bear  prosperity,  liberty, 
and  peace.  They  will  learn  it  in  a  higher  state  of  civilization. 
"We  think  we  are  the  models  for  posterity,  when  we  are  little  bet- 
ter than  beacons  to  help  it  to  avoid  the  rocks  and  quicksands." 

"  When  I  come  here,"  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Hargreaves  from  Dun- 
ford,  "  to  ramble  alone  in  the  fields  and  to  think,  I  am  impressed 
with  the  aspect  of  our  political  and  social  relations.  We  have  the 
spirit  of  feudalism  rife  and  rampant  in  the  midst  of  the  antagonis- 
tic development  of  the  age  of  Watt,  Arkwright,  and  Stephenson  1 
Nay,  feudalism  is  every  day  more  and  more  in  the  ascendant  in 
political  and  social  life.  So  great  is  its  power  and  prestige  that 
it  draws  to  it  the  support  and  homage  of  even  those  who  are  the 
natural  leaders  of  the  newer  and  better  civilization.     Manufac- 

1  Bagehot's  Literary  Studies,  vol.  i.  p.  373,  —  a  passage  as  applicable  to  Cobden 
as  to  Mr.  "Wilson,  about  whom  it  is  written. 


CONCLUSION.  635 

turers  and  merchants  as  a  rule  seem  only  to  desire  riches  that  they 
may  be  enabled  to  prostrate  themselves  at  the  feet  of  feudalism. 
How  is  this  to  end  ?  And  whither  are  we  tending  in  botli  our 
domestic  and  foreign  relations  ?  Can  we  hope  to  avoid  collisions 
at  home  or  wars  abroad  whilst  all  the  tendencies  are  to  throw 
power  and  influence  into  the  wrong  scale  ?  "  ^ 

He  had  begun  life  with  the  idea  that  the  great  manufacturers 
and  merchants  of  England  should  aspire  to  that  high  directing 
position  which  had  raised  the  Medici,  the  Fuggers,  and  the  De 
Witts  to  a  level  with  the  sovereign  princes  of  the  earth .^  At  the 
end  he  still  thought  that  no  other  class  possessed  wealth  and  in- 
fluence enough  to  counteract  the  feudal  class.^  Through  all  his 
public  course  Cobden  did  his  best  to  moralize  this  great  class;  to 
raise  its  self-respect  and  its  consciousness  of  its  own  dignity  and 
power.  Like  every  one  else,  he  could  only  Avork  within  his  own 
limits.  It  is  too  soon  yet  to  say  how  our  feudal  society  will  ulti- 
mately be  recast.  So  far  plutocracy  shows  a  very  slight  gain  upon 
aristocracy,  of  which  it  remains,  as  Cobden  so  constantly  deplored, 
an  imitation,  and  a  very  bad  imitation.  The  political  exclusive- 
ness  of  the  oligarchy  has  been  thoroughly  broken  down  since  Cob- 
den's  day.  It  seems,  however,  as  if  the  preponderance  of  power  j 
were  inevitably  destined  not  for  the  middle  class,  as  he  believed,  / 
but  for  the  workmen. 

For  this  future  rec/ime  Cobden's  work  was  the  best  preparation. 
He  conceived  a  certain  measure  of  material  prosperity,  generally 
diffused,  to  be  an  indispensable  instrument  of  social  well-being. 
For  England,  as  with  admirable  foresight  he  laid  down  in  his  first 
pamphlet,  in  1835,  the  cardinal  fact  is  the  existence  of  the  United 
States  —  its  industrial  competition  and  its  democratic  example.  y 
This  has  transformed  the  conditions  of  policy.  This  is  what  warns  ^y^ 
English  statesmen  to  set  their  house  in  order.  For  a  country  in 
our  position,  to  keep  the  standard  of  living  at  its  right  level,  free 
access  to  the  means  of  subsistence  and  the  material  of  industry 
was  the  first  essential.  Thrift  in  government  and  wise  adnunis-  »/ 
tration  of  private  capital  have  become  equally  momentous  in 
presence  of  the  rising  world  around  us.  To  abstain  from  inter- 
vention in  the  aflfiiirs  of  other  nations  is  not  only  recommended 
by  economic  prudence,  but  is  the  only  condition  on  which  proper 
attention  can  be  paid  to  the  moral  and  social  necessities  at  home. 
Let  us  not,  then,  tax  Cobden  with  failing  to  do  the  work  of  the 
social  moralist.  It  is  his  policy  which  gives  to  the  social  reformer 
a  foothold.  He  accepted  the  task  which,  from  the  special  require- 
ments of  the  time,  it  fell  to  him  to  do,  and  it  is  both  unjust  and 
ungrateful  to  call  him  narrow  for  not  performing  the  tasks  of  others 
as  well  as  his  own. 

1  To  Mr.  Hargreaves,  April  10,  1863.  «  See  above,  pp.  576,  577. 

2  See  above,  p.  91. 


636  LIFE   OF   COBDEN. 

It  was  his  view  of  policy  as  a  whole,  connected  with  the  move- 
ment of  wealth  and  industry  all  over  the  world,  that  distinguished 
Cobden  and  his  allies  from  the  Philosophic  Eadicals,  who  had 
been  expected  to  form  so  great  and  powerful  a  school  in  the  re- 
formed Parliament.^  Hume  had  anticipated  him  in  attacking 
expenditure,  and  Mr.  Ptoebuck  in  preaching  self-government  in 
the  colonies.  It  was  not  until  Retrenchment  and  Colonial  Policy 
were  placed  in  their  true  relation  to  the  new  and  vast  expansion 
of  commerce  and  the  growth  of  population,  that  any  considerable 
number  of  people  accepted  them.  The  Radical  party  only  became 
effective  when  it  had  connected  its  principles  with  economic  facts. 
The  different  points  of  view  of  the  Manchester  School  and  of  the 
Philosophic  Radicals  was  illustrated  in  Mr.  Mill's  opposition  to 
the  alterations  which  Cobden  had  advocated  in  international  mari- 
time law.  Mr.  Mill  argued  that  the  best  way  of  stopping  wars  is 
to  make  them  as  onerous  as  possible  to  the  citizens  of  the  country 
concerned,  and  therefore  that  to  protect  the  goods  of  the  mer- 
chants of  a  belligerent  country  is  to  give  them  one  motive  the 
less  for  hindering  their  Government  from  making  war.  With  all 
reverence  for  the  ever  admirable  author  of  this  argument,  it  must 
be  pronounced  to  be  abstract  and  unreal,  when  compared  with 
Cobden's.  You  are  not  likely  to  prevent  the  practice  of  war,  he 
contended,  but  what  you  can  do  is  to  make  it  less  destructive  to 
the  interests  and  the  security  of  great  populations.  An  argument 
of  this  kind  rests  on  a  more  solid  basis,  and  suggests  a  wider  com- 
prehension of  actual  facts.  In  the  same  way  he  translated  the 
revolutionary  watchword  of  the  Fraternity  of  Peoples  into  the 
language  of  common  sense  and  practice,  and  the  international 
sentiment  as  interpreted  by  him  became  an  instrument  for  pre- 
serving as  well  as  improving  European  order.  He  was  justified 
in  regarding  his  principles  as  the  true  Conservatism  of  modern 
societies. 

Great  economic  and  social  forces  flow  with  a  tidal  sweep  over 
communities  that  are  only  half-conscious  of  that  which  is  befall- 
ing them.  Wise  statesmen  are  those  who  foresee  what  time  is 
thus  bringing,  and  endeavor  to  shape  institutions  and  to  mould 
^  men's  thought  and  purpose  in  accordance  with  the  change-  that  is 
silently  surrounding  them.  To  this  type  Cobden  by  his  character 
and  his  influence  belonged.  Hence,  amid  the  coarse  strife  and 
blind  passion  of  the  casual  factions  of  the  day,  his  name  will  stand 
conspicuously  out  as  a  good  servant  of  the  Commonwealth,  and 
be  long  held  in  grateful  memory. 

I  See  Mr.  Mill's  Autobiography,  pp.  194-196. 


APPENDIX 


Note  A.     (See  p.  78.) 
CoMen  to  W,  C.  Hunt  on  the  Hours  of  Labor. 

Falmouth,  Oct.  21,  1836. 
"  .  .  .  .  When  upon  the  point  of  embarking  on  board  the  Liv- 
erpool steamer  for  Lisbon,  a  thought  has  occurred  to  me  relative 
to  the  address  which  I  left  with  you  for  the  Stockport  electors, 
and  which  induces  me  to  trouble  you  with  this  letter.  I  have 
altogether  omitted  to  advert  to  the  Ten  Hours  Bill;  and  as  it  is  a 
question  that  interests  deeply  the  non-electors,  whose  influence, 
I  am  aware,  is  very  considerable  in  your  borough,  I  might  be  con- 
sidered to  have  wilfully  and  designedly  suppressed  all  allusion 
to  the  subject,  if  I  did  not  explain  my  opinions  unreservedly 
upon  it.  As  respects  the  right  and  justice  by  which  young  per- 
sons ought  to  be  protected  from  excessive  labor,  my  mind  has  ever 
been  decided,  and  I  will  not  argue  the  matter  for  a  moment  with 
political  economy ;  it  is  a  question  for  the  medical  and  not  the 

economical  profession ;  I  will  appeal  to  or  Astley  Cooper, 

and  not  to  MacCulloch  or  Martineau.  .Nor  does  it  require  the 
aid  of  science  to  inform  us  that  the  tender  germ  of  childhood  is 
unfitted  for  that  period  of  labor  which  even  persons  of  mature 
age  shrink  from  as  excessive.  In  my  opinion,  and  I  hope  to  see 
the  day  when  such  a  feeling  is  universal,  no  child  ought  to  he  put 
to  work  in  a  cotton  mill  at  all  so  early  as  the  age  of  thirteen  years; 
and  after  that  the  hours  should  be  moderate,  and  the  labor  light, 
until  such  time  as  the  human  frame  is  rendered  by  nature  capable 
of  enduring  the  fatigues  of  adult  labor.  With  such  feelings  as 
these  strongly  pervading  my  mind,  I  need  not  perhaps  add  that, 
had  I  been  in  the  House  of  Commons  during  the  last  session  of 
Parliament,  I  should  have  opposed  with  all  my  might  Mr.  Poulett 
Thomson  s  measure  for  postponing  the  operation  of  the  clause  for 
restricting  the  hours  of  infant  labor.  I  am  aware  that  many  of 
the  advocates  of  the  cause  of  the  factory  children  are  in  favor 


638  APPENDIX. 

of  a  Ten  Hours  Bill  for  restricting  the  working  of  the  engines, 
which  in  fact  would  be  to  limit  the  use  of  steam  in  all  cotton 
establishments  (for  young  persons  are,  I  believe,  at  present  em- 
ployed in  every  branch  of  our  staple  manufacture,  more  or  less) 
to  ten  hours  a  day.  It  has  always,  however,  appeared  to  me  that 
those  who  are  in  favor  of  this  policy  lose  sight  of  the  very  impor- 
tant consequences  which  are  involved  in  the  principle.  Have 
they  considered  that  it  would  be  the  first  example  of  a  legislature 
of  a  free  country  interfering  with  the  freedom  of  adult  labor  ? 
Have  they  reflected  that,  if  we  surrender  into  the  hands  of  Gov- 
ernment the  power  to  make  laws  to  fix  the  hours  of  labor  at  all, 
it  has  as  good  a  right,  upon  the  same  principle,  to  make  twenty 
hours  the  standard  as  ten  ?  Have  they  taken  into  account  that, 
if  the  spinners  and  weavers  are  to  be  protected  by  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment, then  the  thousand  other  mechanical  and  laborious  trades 
must  in  justice  have  their  claims  attended  to  by  the  same  tri- 
bunal ?  I  believe  it  is  now  nearly  three  hundred  years  ago  since 
laws  were  last  enforced  which  regulated  or  interfered  with  the 
labor  of  tlie  working  classes.  They  were  the  relics  of  the  feudal 
ages,  and  to  escape  from  the  operation  of  such  a  species  of  legisla- 
tion was  considered  as  a  transition  from  a  state  of  slavery  to  that 
of  freedom.  Now  it  appears  to  me,  however  unconscious  the  ad- 
vocates of  such  a  policy  may  be  of  such  consequences,  that  if  we 
admit  the  right  of  the  Government  to  settle  the  hours  of  labor, 
we  are  in  principle  going  back  again  to  that  point  from  which  our 
ancestors  escaped  three  centuries  ago.  Let  not  the  people  —  I 
mean  the  masses  —  think  lightly  of  those  great  principles  upon 
which  their  strength  wholly  rests.  The  privileged  and  usurping 
few  may  advocate  expediency  in  lieu  of  principles,  but  depend 
upon  it  we,  reformers,  must  cling  to  first  principles,  and  be  pre- 
pared to  carry  them  out,  fearless  of  consequences.  Am  I  told  that 
the  industrious  classes  in  Lancashire  are  incapable  of  protecting 
themselves  from  oppression  unless  by  the  shield  of  the  legislature  ? 
I  am  loath  to  believe  it.  Nay,  as  I  am  opposed  to  the  plan  of 
legislating  upon  such  a  subject,  I  am  bound  to  suggest  another 
remedy.  /  luould,  then,  advise  the  ivorking  classes  to  make  them- 
selves free  of  the  labor  market  of  the  ivorld,  and  this  they  can  do  hy 
accitmulating  twenty  'pounds  each,  which  will  give  them  the  com- 
mand of  the  only  market  in  which  labor  is  at  a  higher  rate  than 
in  England — I  mean  that  of  the  United  States.  If  every  work- 
ingman  would  save  this  sum,  he  might  be  as  independant  of  his 
employer  as  the  latter,  with  his  great  capital,  is  of  his  workmen. 
Were  this  universal,  we  should  hear  no  more  of  the  tyranny  of 
the  employers.  If  I  am  told  that  my  scheme  is  chimerical  be- 
cause the  working  classes  cannot  depend  upon  each  other,  I  answer 
that  I  have  better  hopes  of  them,  and  I  look  forward  to  many 


APPENDIX.  639 

other  improvements  of  a  similar  kind.  All  that  is  required,  in 
my  opinion,  is  that  the  operatives  understand  their  own  interests, 
and  be  not  put  upon  a  false  scent ;  let  them  trust  only  to  tliem- 
selves,  and  not  depend  upon  the  legislature,  which  will  never  avail 
them.  I  yield  to  no  man  in  the  world  (be  he  ever  so  stout 
an  advocate  of  the  Ten  Hours  Bill)  in  a  hearty  good-will  towards 
the  great  body  of  the  working  classes ;  but  my  sympathy  is  not  of 
that  morbid  kind  which  would  lead  me  to  despond  over  their 
future  prospects.  Nor  do  I  partake  of  that  spurious  humanity, 
which  would  indulge  in  an  unreasoning  kind  of  philanthropy  at 
the  expense  of  the  independence  of  the  great  bulk  of  the  commu- 
nity. Mine  is  that  masculine  species  of  charity  which  would  lead 
me  to  inculcate  in  the  minds  of  the  laboring  classes  the  love  of 
independence,  the  privilege  of  self-respect,  the  disdain  of  being 
patronized  or  petted,  the  desire  to  accumulate,  and  the  ambition 
to  rise.  I  know  it  has  been  found  easier  to  please  the  people  by 
holding  out  flattering  ami  delusive  prospects  of  cheap  benefits  to 
be  derived  from  Parliament,  rather  than  by  urging  them  to  a 
course  of  self-reliance ;  but  while  I  will  not  be  the  sycophant  of 
the  great,  I  cannot  become  the  parasite  of  the  poor;  and  I  have 
sufficient  confidence  in  the  growing  intelligence  of  the  working 
classes  to  be  induced  to  believe  that  they  will  now  be  found  to 
contain  a  great  proportion  of  minds,. sufficiently  enlightened  by 
experience  to  concur  with  me  in  opinion  that  it  is  to  themselves 
alone  individually,  that  they,  as  well  as  every  other  great  section 
of  the  comnumity,  must  trust  for  working  out  their  own  regen- 
eration and  happiness.  Again  I  say  to  them,  'Look  not  to  Parlia- 
ment, look  only  to  yoicr selves.' 

"  It  would  be  easy  for  me  to  state  reasons  of  a  different  descrip- 
tion why  the  legislature  ought  not  to  be  suffered  to  interfere  with 
the  freedom  of  the  labor  of  the  people.  How  very  obvious,  how- 
ever, must  it  be  that  any  law  restricting  the  hours  of  labor  would 
be  inoperative  so  soon  as  it  became  the  interest  of  masters  and 
workmen  to  violate  it!  Where,  then,  would  be  the  utility  or 
wisdom  of  an  enactment  which  owed  its  power  entirely  to  the  free 
will  of  the  parties  whom  it  professed  to  coerce  ?  Surely  they 
might  act  as  effectually  without  the  necessity  of  infringing  and 
merely  bringing  into  disrepute  the  law  of  the  land !  But  it  is 
impossible  to  pursue  the  question  to  the  extent  of  its  merits  within 
the  limits  of  a  sheet  of  letter-paper.  If  I  am  told  by  the  advocates 
of  a  Ten  Hours  Bill  that  the  plan  of  putting  a  restriction  upon 
the  moving  power  is  the  only  way  of  saving  the  infants  from 
destruction,  to  what  a  sad  point  does  this  argument  conduct  us ! 
It  is,  in  fact,  an  avowal  that  the  parents  cannot  be  trusted  to  obey 
a  law  which  forbids  them  to  sacrifice  their  offspring.  Against 
this  lamentable  aspersion  upon  the  natural  affection  of  the  working 


640  APPENDIX. 

classes  I  enter  my  solemn  protest.  I  believe,  on  the  contrary, 
that  public  opinion  amongst  them  is  sufficiently  patent  to  prevent 
an  unnatural  connivance  of  the  kind  on  the  part  of  any  consid- 
erable number  of  parents ;  and  I  am  convinced  that  the  morality 
of  the  people  is  rapidly  advancing  to  that  elevated  standard  which 
will  very  soon  preclude  the  apprehension  that  any  individual  of 
this  body  will  be  found  sufficiently  depraved  to  be  suspected  of 
the  guilt  of  infanticide." 


University  Press ;  Johu  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


OVERDUE.  ____^— ======S#=f=^^^^ 


V*'*^'^^ 


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